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Photosynthesis: What controls the membrane protein Ring Size?

Objetivo

During the last decade life sciences have witnessed a spectacular progress in structural biology with the structures of many important biomolecules coming available. However, up to now, only a few structures of membrane proteins have been determined, even although as many as 20 to 40% of the genes of all sequenced genomes code for such macromolecules.

Photosynthetic membrane proteins have been at the forefront of membrane protein science, because they generally bind chlorophyll and carotenoid cofactors. The electronic and vibrational properties of these cofactors tightly depend on the precise structure of the proteins to which they are bound and the interactions between them.

The presence of these cofactors thus allows the use of a wide range of non-invasive, state-of-the-art spectroscopic techniques to control and to study their structure and dynamics in relation to their function. This unique property explains why most of the breakthroughs in membrane protein science, from the first isolation of a highly pure and functionally active membrane protein, to the solving of the first structure of a membrane protein, have been achieved with proteins from the photosynthetic membrane.

The light-harvesting pigments used in purple bacterial photosynthesis are organised into two types of integral membrane pigment-protein complexes, called reaction centres and antenna complexes. Light absorbed by the antenna complexes in transferred to the reaction centres where it is trapped. The antenna complexes are all oligomers of dimers.

These dimers consist of apoproteins together with the pigments. The antenna oligomers are all circular structures and, so far, rings with 8, 9 and 16 dimers have been described. A major question is what controls ring size? The proposal sets out t o answer this by a detailed comparison of LH2 complexes that have different ring sizes.

Ámbito científico (EuroSciVoc)

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Tema(s)

Convocatoria de propuestas

FP6-2002-MOBILITY-5
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Régimen de financiación

EIF - Marie Curie actions-Intra-European Fellowships

Coordinador

COMMISSARIAT A L'ENERGIE ATOMIQUE
Aportación de la UE
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