A different perspective for nonphotochemical quenching in plant antenna complexes

Edoardo Cignoni, Margherita Lapillo, Lorenzo Cupellini (), Silvia Acosta-Gutiérrez, Francesco Luigi Gervasio () and Benedetta Mennucci ()
Additional contact information
Edoardo Cignoni: University of Pisa
Margherita Lapillo: University of Pisa
Lorenzo Cupellini: University of Pisa
Silvia Acosta-Gutiérrez: University College London
Francesco Luigi Gervasio: University College London
Benedetta Mennucci: University of Pisa

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Light-harvesting complexes of plants exert a dual function of light-harvesting (LH) and photoprotection through processes collectively called nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ). While LH processes are relatively well characterized, those involved in NPQ are less understood. Here, we characterize the quenching mechanisms of CP29, a minor LHC of plants, through the integration of two complementary enhanced-sampling techniques, dimensionality reduction schemes, electronic calculations and the analysis of cryo-EM data in the light of the predicted conformational ensemble. Our study reveals that the switch between LH and quenching state is more complex than previously thought. Several conformations of the lumenal side of the protein occur and differently affect the pigments’ relative geometries and interactions. Moreover, we show that a quenching mechanism localized on a single chlorophyll-carotenoid pair is not sufficient but many chlorophylls are simultaneously involved. In such a diffuse mechanism, short-range interactions between each carotenoid and different chlorophylls combined with a protein-mediated tuning of the carotenoid excitation energies have to be considered in addition to the commonly suggested Coulomb interactions.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27526-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-27526-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27526-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().