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These pigments enter a high-energy state upon absorbing a photon which they can release in the form of chemical energy. This can occur via light-driven pumping of ions across a biological membrane (e.g. in the case of the proton pump bacteriorhodopsin ) or via excitation and transfer of electrons released by photolysis (e.g. in the photosystems ...
The pigments which absorb light at the highest energy level are found furthest from the reaction center. On the other hand, the pigments with the lowest energy level are more closely associated with the reaction center. Energy will be efficiently transferred from the outer part of the antenna complex to the inner part.
Like plants, the cyanobacteria use water as an electron donor for photosynthesis and therefore liberate oxygen; they also use chlorophyll as a pigment.In addition, most cyanobacteria use phycobiliproteins, water-soluble pigments which occur in the cytoplasm of the chloroplast, to capture light energy and pass it on to the chlorophylls.
In 2011 the OEC of PSII was resolved to a level of 1.9Å revealing five oxygen atoms serving as oxo bridges linking the five metal atoms and four water molecules bound to the Mn 4 CaO 5 cluster; more than 1,300 water molecules were found in each photosystem II monomer, some forming extensive hydrogen-bonding networks that may serve as channels ...
Each antenna complex has between 250 and 400 pigment molecules and the energy they absorb is shuttled by resonance energy transfer to a specialized chlorophyll a at the reaction center of each photosystem. When either of the two chlorophyll a molecules at the reaction center absorb energy, an electron is excited and transferred to an electron ...
The electron in the higher energy level is unstable and will quickly return to its normal lower energy level. To do this, it must release the absorbed energy. This can happen in various ways. The extra energy can be converted into molecular motion and lost as heat, or re-emitted by the electron as light (fluorescence).
Each absorbed photon causes the formation of an exciton (an electron excited to a higher energy state) in the pigment molecule. The energy of the exciton is transferred to a chlorophyll molecule ( P680 , where P stands for pigment and 680 for its absorption maximum at 680 nm) in the reaction center of photosystem II via resonance energy transfer .
When the photon has been absorbed, the resulting high-energy electron is transferred to a nearby pheophytin molecule. This is above and to the right of the pair on the diagram and is coloured grey. The electron travels from the pheophytin molecule through two plastoquinone molecules, the first tightly bound, the second loosely bound.