%X Photosynthesis and respiration rely upon a proton gradient to produce ATP. In photosynthesis, the Respiratory Complex I homologue, Photosynthetic Complex I (PS-CI) is proposed to couple ferredoxin oxidation and plastoquinone reduction to proton pumping across
thylakoid membranes. However, little is known about the PS-CI molecular mechanism and
attempts to understand its function have previously been frustrated by its large size and high
lability. Here, we overcome these challenges by pushing the limits in sample size and
spectroscopic sensitivity, to determine arguably the most important property of any electron
transport enzyme – the reduction potentials of its cofactors, in this case the iron-sulphur
clusters of PS-CI (N0, N1 and N2), and unambiguously assign them to the structure using
double electron-electron resonance. We have thus determined the bioenergetics of the
electron transfer relay and provide insight into the mechanism of PS-CI, laying the foundations for understanding of how this important bioenergetic complex functions.
%O This article is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party
material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless
indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the
article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory
regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/.
%A KH Richardson
%A JJ Wright
%A M Simenas
%A J Thiemann
%A AM Esteves
%A G McGuire
%A WK Myers
%A JJL Morton
%A M Hippler
%A MM Nowaczyk
%A GT Hanke
%A MM Roessler
%J Nature Communications
%L discovery10135179
%I NATURE PORTFOLIO
%V 12
%T Functional basis of electron transport within photosynthetic complex I
%K Science & Technology, Multidisciplinary Sciences, Science & Technology - Other Topics, NADH-UBIQUINONE OXIDOREDUCTASE, IRON-SULFUR CLUSTERS, PHOTOSYSTEM-I, EPR-SPECTRA, SUPEROXIDE-PRODUCTION, GENE ORGANIZATION, CHLOROPLAST NDH, 4FE-4S CLUSTER, SUBUNIT, FLOW
%N 1
%D 2021