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Photosystem (PS) I is a huge membrane protein complex which coordinates around 200 co-factors. Upon light excitation a charge separation at the PS I reaction centre is induced which leads to an electron transport across the thylakoid membrane and the generation of redox equivalents needed for several biochemical reactions, e.g. the synthesis of sugars. For higher plants and cyanobacteria the crystal structure of PS I complexes were resolved to resolutions of 4.4 Å and 2.5 Å. Furthermore, supramolecular structures of PS I of eukaryotic algae, mainly of the green line, were obtained recently. However, up to now, no structure of diatoms is available yet. Diatoms are key players in global primary production and derived from a secondary endosymbiosis event. Their chloroplasts are surrounded by four envelope membranes and their thylakoids are evenly arranged in bands of three, i.e. no separation in grana and stroma regions is apparent. In this thesis a protocol was developed to isolate a functional PS I complex of diatoms which can be used for structural analysis by transmissional electron microscopy (TEM). A photosystem I-fucoxanthin chlorophyll protein (PS I-FCP) complex was isolated from the pennate diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum by ion exchange chromatography. Spectroscopic analysis proved that bound Fcp polypeptides function as a light-harvesting complex. An active light energy transfer from Fcp associated pigments, Chl c and fucoxanthin, towards the PS I core was proven by fluorescence spectroscopy. Oxidised minus reduced difference spectroscopy evidenced the activity of the PS I reaction centre P700 and yielded a chlorophyll a/P700 ratio of approximately 200:1. These data indicate that the isolated PS I-FCP complex exceeds the PS I cores from cyanobacteria and higher plants in the numbers of chlorophyll a molecules. Because of the strict conservation of PS I cores among organisms the additional 100 chlorophyll a molecules must either be coordinated by Fcps or function as linker molecules between the Fcp antenna and the PS I core as shown for the PS I-LHC I complex of higher plants. To tell something about the structural organisation, the PS I-FCP complex was compared with its cyanobacterial and higher plant counterparts. Whereas cyanobacterial PS I cores aggregate to trimers, usually without associated antennae, higher plant PS I is a monomer and binds additionally two LHC I heterodimers. BN-PAGE and gel filtration experiments showed that also diatoms contain PS I monomers associated with Fcps as light-harvesting antenna. First TEM studies evidenced these observations. Negatively stained PS I-FCP particles had an increased size compared to PS I cores of other organisms. No PS I trimers or higher oligomers have been found. The calculated diameter and shape of the particles correspond to PS I-LHC I particles obtained from green algae, which also comprise of a higher number of LHC I polypeptides compared to the higher plant x-ray structure. Additionally, the analysis of polypeptides indicates that the PS I associated Fcps differ from the free Fcp pool and also from Fcps of a PS II enriched fraction. The assumption that diatoms harbour just one Fcp antenna that serve both Photosystems equally seems to be wrong. To further study the association of Fcps with the two Photosystems, both complexes plus the free FCP complexes were isolated from the centric diatom Cyclotella meneghiniana. Because of the availability of antibodies directed against specific Fcp polypeptides of Cyclotella the PS I-FCP complex of Phaeodactylum could not be used. A trimeric FCP complex, FCPa, and a higher FCP oligomer, FCPb, have already been described for C. meneghiniana. The latter is assumed to be composed of only Fcp5, whereas the FCPa contains Fcp2 and Fcp6. Biochemical and spectroscopical evidences revealed a different subset of associated Fcp polypeptides within the isolated photosystem complexes. Whereas the PS II associated Fcp antenna resembles FCPa, at least three different Fcp polypeptides are associated with PS I. By re-solubilisation of the PS I complex and a further purification step Fcp polypeptides were partially removed from PS I and both fractions were analysed again by biochemical and spectroscopical means, as well as by HPLC. Thereby Fcp4 and a so far undescribed 17 kDa Fcp were found to be strongly coupled to PS I, whereas another Fcp, presumably Fcp5, is only loosely bound to the PS I core. Thus an association of FCPb and PS I is assumed.
Photo-initiated processes, like photo-excitation and -deexcitation, internal conversion, excitation energy transfer and electron transfer, are of importance in many areas of physics, chemistry and biology. For the understanding of such processes, detailed knowledge of excitation energies, potential energy surfaces and excited state properties of the involved molecules is an essential prerequisite. To obtain these informations, quantum chemical calculations are required. Several quantum chemical methods exist which allow for the calculation of excited states. Most of these methods are computationally costly what makes them only applicable to small molecules. However, many biological systems where photo-processes are of interest like light-harvesting complexes in photosynthesis or the reception of light in the human eye by rhodopsin are quite large. For large systems, however, only few theoretical methods remain applicable. The currently most widely used method is time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT), which can treat systems of up to 200–300 atoms with the excitation energies of some excited states exhibiting errors of less than 0.5 eV. Yet, TD-DFT has several drawbacks. The most severe failure of TD-DFT is the false description of charge transfer states which is particularly problematic in case of larger systems where it yields a multitude of artificially low-lying charge transfer states. But also Rydberg states and states with large double excitation character are not described correctly. Still, if these deficiencies are kept in mind during the interpretation of results, TD-DFT is a useful tool for the calculation of excited states. In my thesis, TD-DFT is applied in investigations of excitation energy and electron transfer processes in light-harvesting complexes. Since light-harvesting complexes, which consist of thousands of atoms, are by far too large to be calculated, model complexes for the processes of interest are constructed from available crystal structures. The model complexes are used to calculate potential energy curves along meaningful reaction coordinates. Artificial charge transfer states are corrected with the help of the so-called ∆DFT method. The resulting potential energy curves are then interpreted by comparison with experimental results. For the light-harvesting complex LH2 from purple bacteria the experimentally observed formation of carotenoid radical cations is studied. It is shown that the carotenoid radical cation is formed most likely via the optically forbidden S1 state of the carotenoid. In light-harvesting complex LHC-II of green plants the fast component of the so-called non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) is investigated. Two of several different hypotheses on the mechanism of NPQ, which have been proposed recently, are studied in detail. The first one suggests that NPQ proceeds via simple replacement of violaxanthin by zeaxanthin in the binding pocket in LHC-II. However, the calculated potential energy curves exhibit no difference between violaxanthin and zeaxanthin in the binding pocket. In combination with experimental results it is thus shown that simple replacement alone does not mediate NPQ in LHC-II. The second hypothesis proposes conformational changes of LHC-II that lead to quenching at the central lutein and chlorophyll molecules during NPQ. My TD-DFT calculations demonstrate that if this mechanism is operative, only the lutein 1 which is one of two central luteins present in LHC-II can take part in the quenching process. This is corroborated by recent experiments. Though several conclusions can be drawn from the investigations using TD-DFT, the interpretability of the results is limited due to the deficiencies of the method and of the models. To overcome the methodological deficiencies, more accurate methods have to be employed. Therefore, the so-called algebraic diagrammatic construction scheme (ADC) is implemented. ADC is a widely overlooked ab initio method for the calculation of excited states, which is based on propagator theory. Its theoretical derivation proceeds via perturbation expansion of the polarization propagator, which describes electronic excitations. This yields separate schemes for every order of perturbation theory. The second order scheme ADC(2), which is employed here, is the equivalent to the Møller-Plesset ground state method MP(2), but for excited states. It represents the computationally cheapest excited state method which can correctly describe doubly excited states, as well as Rydberg and charge transfer states. The quality of ADC(2) results is demonstrated in calculations on linear polyenes which serve as model systems for the larger carotenoid molecules. The calculations show that ADC(2) describes the three lowest excited states of polyenes sufficiently well, particularly the optically forbidden S1 state which is known to possess large double excitation character. Yet, the applicability of the method is limited compared to TD-DFT due to the much larger computational requirements. To facilitate the calculation of larger systems with ADC(2) a new variant of the method is developed and implemented. The variant employs the short-range behavior of electron correlation to reduce the computational effort. As a first step, the working equations of ADC(2) are transformed into a basis of local orbitals. In this basis negligible contributions of the equations which are due to electron correlation can be identified based on the distances of local orbitals. A so-called “bumping” scheme is implemented which removes the negligible parts during a calculation. This way, the computation times as well as the disk space requirements can be reduced. With the “bumping” scheme several new parameters are introduced that regulate the amount of “bumping” and thereby the speed and the accuracy of computations. To determine useful values for the parameters an evaluation is performed using the linear polyene octatetraene as test molecule. From the evaluation an optimal set of parameter values is obtained, so that the computation times become minimal, while the errors in the excitation energies due to the “bumping” do not exceed 0.15 eV. With further calculations on various molecules of different sizes it is tested if these parameter values are universal, i.e. if they can be used for all molecules. The test calculations show that the errors in the excitation energies are below 0.15 eV for all test systems. Additionally, no trend is visible for the errors that their magnitude might depend on the system. In contrast, the amount of disregarded contributions in the calculations increases drastically with growing system size. Thus, the local variant of ADC(2) can be used in future to reliably calculate excited states of systems which are not accessible with conventional ADC(2).
The light-harvesting complex of photosystem II (LHC-II) is the major antenna complex in plant photosynthesis. It accounts for roughly 30% of the total protein in plant chloroplasts, which makes it arguably the most abundant membrane protein on Earth, and binds about half of plant chlorophyll (Chl). The complex assembles as a trimer in the thylakoid membrane and binds a total of 54 pigment molecules, including 24 Chl a, 18 Chl b, 6 lutein (Lut), 3 neoxanthin (Neo) and 3 violaxanthin (Vio). LHC-II has five key roles in plant photosynthesis. It: (1) harvests sunlight and transmits excitation energy to the reaction centres of photosystems II and I, (2) regulates the amount of excitation energy reaching each of the two photosystems, (3) has a structural role in the architecture of the photosynthetic supercomplexes, (4) contributes to the tight appression of thylakoid membranes in chloroplast grana, and (5) protects the photosynthetic apparatus from photo damage by non photochemical quenching (NPQ). A major fraction of NPQ is accounted for its energy-dependent component qE. Despite being critical for plant survival and having been studied for decades, the exact details of how excess absorbed light energy is dissipated under qE conditions remain enigmatic. Today it is accepted that qE is regulated by the magnitude of the pH gradient (ΔpH) across the thylakoid membrane. It is also well documented that the drop in pH in the thylakoid lumen during high-light conditions activates the enzyme violaxanthin de-epoxidase (VDE), which converts the carotenoid Vio into zeaxanthin (Zea) as part of the xanthophyll cycle. Additionally, studies with Arabidopsis mutants revealed that the photosystem II subunit PsbS is necessary for qE. How these physiological responses switch LHC-II from the active, energy transmitting to the quenched, energy-dissipating state, in which the solar energy is not transmitted to the photosystems but instead dissipated as heat, remains unclear and is the subject of this thesis. From the results obtained during this doctoral work, five main conclusions can be drawn concerning the mechanism of qE: 1. Substitution of Vio by Zea in LHC-II is not sufficient for efficient dissipation of excess excitation energy. 2. Aggregation quenching of LHC-II does not require Vio, Neo nor a specific Chl pair. 3. With one exception, the pigment structure in LHC-II is rigid. 4. The two X-ray structures of LHC-II show the same energy transmitting state of the complex. 5. Crystalline LHC-II resembles the complex in the thylakoid membrane. Models of the aggregation quenching mechanism in vitro and the qE mechanism in vivo are presented as a corollary of this doctoral work. LHC-II aggregation quenching in vitro is attributed to the formation of energy sinks on the periphery of LHC-II through random interaction with other trimers, free pigments or impurities. A similar but unrelated process is proposed to occur in the thylakoid membrane, by which excess excitation energy is dissipated upon specific interaction between LHC-II and a PsbS monomer carrying Zea. At the end of this thesis, an innovative experimental model for the analysis of all key aspects of qE is proposed in order to finally solve the qE enigma, one of the last unresolved problems in photosynthesis research.
Der Lichtsammelkomplex II (LHCII) dient als Lichtantenne für das photosynthetische Reaktionszentrum II der höheren Pflanzen. Seine Trimere stellen das häufigste Protein in der Thylakoidmembran dar. Ungefähr die Hälfte des Chlorophylls der Pflanze befindet sich in diesem Komplex. Der LHCII ist ein integrales Membranprotein und bindet neben Chlorophyll a und b auch verschiedene Carotinoide. Seine Pigmente absorbieren Licht und geben die dadurch aufgenommene Energie an die photosynthetischen Reaktionszentren weiter, wo sie ausgehend von einer Ladungstrennung chemisch konserviert wird. Die Weiterleitung der Anregungsenergie im LHCII geschieht über spezifische Pfade und mit ultraschneller Kinetik im Femtosekundenbereich. Der LHCII ist das einzige Antennenprotein der höheren Pflanzen, dessen dreidimensionale Struktur bei einer fast atomaren Auflösung von 3.4Å gelöst wurde. Bei dieser Auflösung war es jedoch nicht möglich, den Unterschied zwischen Chlorophyll a und b zu bestimmen, außerdem waren nur zwei der insgesamt drei bis vier gebundenen Carotinoide sichtbar. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit bestand darin, die einzelnen Pigmente, deren Positionen aus der Struktur bekannt waren, nach ihrer chemischen Natur zuzuordnen. Hierzu wurden mutierte Komplexe untersucht, bei denen jeweils ein bestimmtes Chlorophyllmolekül fehlte. Dies wurde durch Punktmutationen im Polypeptid erreicht, bei denen diejenige Aminosäure ausgetauscht war, an die ein bestimmtes Chlorophyllmolekül über das zentrale Mg 2 Atom gebunden war. Die veränderten Proteine wurden durch ortsgerichtete Mutagenese und Überexpression des Polypeptids in E. coli hergestellt, wo sie ohne die Pigmente aggregiert in Einschlusskörpern vorlagen. Die Rückfaltung in Gegenwart von Pigmenten und Detergenzien erfolgte auf einer NickelAffinitätssäule, an die das LHC Protein mittels einer HexaHistidinmarkierung gebunden war. So konnte in einem biochemischen Schritt das Protein gefaltet, die Pigmente inkorporiert und die native, trimere Form gebildet werden. Die Rückfaltung von histidinmarkierten Proteinen auf Metallaffinitätssäulen kann als generelle Methode auch für andere, schwierig zu faltende, lösliche und Membranproteine angewandt werden. Der native Zustand des rückgefalteten LHCII wurde folgendermaßen bewiesen: Der Pigmentgehalt, der durch HPLC Analyse bestimmt worden war, war identisch zum nativ isolierten Protein. Auch ein Absorptionsspektrum zeigte bei 4K die charakteristische Aufspaltung in mehrere Chlorophyllmaxima. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass in einem Fluoreszenzexperiment die Anregungsenergie, die bei kurzwelligem Chlorophyll b eingestrahlt wurde, im Komplex komplett auf das langwelligste Chlorophyll a übertragen wurde. Schließlich wurden aus dem rekombinanten Protein zweidimensionale Kristalle erzeugt, deren elektronenmikroskopische Projektionsbilder identisch zu denen des Nativproteins waren. Der Austausch der Chlorophylle an einigen Bindungsstellen durch Chlorophyllderivate, die entweder im Zentralatom oder in der Porphyrinringstruktur verändert waren, zeigte, dass das Zentralatom den entscheidenden Faktor zur Stabilisierung der Chlorophyllbindung darstellt. Es wurden neun Mutanten erzeugt, bei denen jeweils derjenige Aminosäurerest ausgetauscht war, von dem aus der Struktur bekannt war, dass er den fünften Liganden für das zentrale Mg 2 Atom eines bestimmten Chlorophylls darstellt. Die HPLC Analyse ihrer Pigmente zeigte, dass die Mutanten tatsächlich jeweils ungefähr ein Chlorophyllmolekül verloren hatten; dies diente dazu, die jeweilige Bindungstasche zu Chl a oder Chl b zuzuordnen. Nur sechs Mutanten bildeten Trimere, ihre biochemischen Daten zeigten, dass die in der Struktur vorgenommene Zuordnung bis auf das Chl b3 korrekt war. Einige Chlorophyllmutanten waren auch in ihrem Gehalt an Neoxanthin reduziert, daraus konnte die ungefähre Lage des Neoxanthins in der Nähe der Helix C abgeleitet werden. Die mutierten Proteine lieferten nicht nur die Zuordnung einer Bindungstasche zu einem bestimmten Chlorophylltyp, sondern es konnte aus den Differenzspektren im Vergleich zum Wildtyp auch die Wellenlänge eines bestimmten Chlorophylls abgeleitet werden. Um eine höhere spektrale Auflösung zu erzielen, wurden die Spektren bei 4K aufgenommen. Die Zuordnung einzelner spektraler Banden zu bestimmten Chlorophyllen zeigte, dass in einer bestimmten Bindungstasche nur entweder Chlorophyll a oder Chlorophyll b gebunden war, da sich nur eine einzige Differenzbande im Spektrum ergab. Weiterhin implizieren die gefundenen Einzelbanden, dass die Pigmente keiner starken excitonischen Kopplung unterliegen, wie dies zum Beispiel im B850 Ring des bakteriellen Lichtsammelkomplexes der Fall ist. Bei LHCII Komplexen, die nur mit Chlorophyll b rückgefaltet worden waren, zeigte sich eine ungewöhnlich langwellige Fluoreszenz bei 77K. Dies könnte auf eine räumlich limitierte Kopplung eines einzelnen Chlorpohyllpaars hinweisen. Bei der Mutante der Chl a2 Bindungsstelle zeigte sich, dass dies das langwelligste der untersuchten Pigmente war. Der zugehörige Koomplex war auch der einzige, bei dem die Fluoreszenz ins Kürzerwellige verschoben war. Die Lage des Chlorophylls a2 an der Außenseite des Proteins ist prädestiniert für die Energieübertragung zum photosynthetischen Reaktionszentrum oder zu benachbarten LHC Komplexen.