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Structural biology

The purple heart of photosynthesis

Nature volume 508, pages 196–197 (2014)Cite this article

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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

Photosynthesis is one of the most fundamentally important biological processes on Earth. It provides all the oxygen we breathe, the food we eat and the fossil fuels we so greedily consume. Purple photosynthetic bacteria have proved to be excellent model organisms with which to study the reactions that occur at the early stages of photosynthesis. In this issue, Niwa et al.1 (page 228) report the X-ray crystal structure of part of the photosynthetic machinery from the bacterium Thermochromatium tepidum, at near-atomic resolution. Their findings greatly advance our understanding of the detailed molecular mechanisms involved in primary photosynthetic reactions.

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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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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Richard J. Cogdell is at the Institute of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK.,

    Richard J. Cogdell

  2. Aleksander W. Roszak is in the WestCHEM, School of Chemistry, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK.,

    Aleksander W. Roszak

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  1. Richard J. Cogdell
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  2. Aleksander W. Roszak
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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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