Structural and functional basis for light absorption and harvesting

In plants, green algae, cyanobacteria and a few other oxygen-evolving photosynthetic organisms, the primary steps of photosynthesis occur in two membrane-bound protein supercomplexes, Photosystem I (PSI) and Photosystem 11 (PSII), introduced in Chapter 1. Recently the structures of several of the antenna systems of oxygenic photosynthetic organisms have been determined to various degrees, some to atomic resolution. The best characterised of these complexes is the PSI antenna/RC complex of the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus. The structures of the PSII core/RC complex and most of the peripheral light-harvesting complexes have so far only been determined to significantly lower resolution.