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Structural biology

The purple heart of photosynthesis

The structure of a photosynthetic complex from a purple bacterium reveals a new class of light-harvesting protein and the channels that might allow electron-transporting molecules to escape this otherwise closed system. See Article p.228

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Figure 1: Typical organization of a photosynthetic unit in the intracellular membrane of purple bacteria.
Figure 2: X-ray crystal structures of three types of the LH1–RC complex.

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Correspondence to Richard J. Cogdell or Aleksander W. Roszak.

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Cogdell, R., Roszak, A. The purple heart of photosynthesis. Nature 508, 196–197 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13219

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