2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Determination of the Functioning Site of Chlorophyll a' in the Photosynthetic Reaction Center I
| Project/Area Number |
12450343
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
工業物理化学
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| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
WATANABE Tadashi The University of Tokyo, Institute of Industrial Science, Professor, 生産技術研究所, 教授 (70092385)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
YOSHIDA Shoichiro The University of Tokyo, Institute of Industrial Science, Research Associate, 生産技術研究所, 助手 (40111570)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2000 – 2002
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| Keywords | photosynthesis / chlorophyll / reaction center / HPLC / spectrophotometry / supramolecule / protein / complex |
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| Research Abstract |
The present research has been conducted to draw a conclusion as to the actual number and the in vito functioning site of chloro-phyll a' (Chl a') which the researchers had detected in the vicinity of the reaction center P700 of photosystem I for a variety of oxygenic photo-synthetic organisms. After establishing HPLC conditions by which most of the chlorophylls, carotenoids/ xanthophylls and quinines can be determined in a relatively short time, we analyzed the pigment compositions of higher plants, a thermophilic cyanobacterium, regular cyanbacteria and green alga, the stoichiometry Chl a' /P700 = 1 was concluded.
This, together with an X-ray crystallographic result on the system I reaction center of the thermophilic cyanobacterium, reported in 2001 by Jordan et al., finally has led to a conclusion that Chl a' is an essential component of P700 itself, forming a heterodimer with the normal Chl a molecule.
In addition to these, the reaction center molecular assemblies of a green sulfur bacterium and of a marine prokaryote have been elucidated for the first time.
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