New Insights into the Membranes of Anoxygenic Phototrophic Bacteria
A special issue of Biomolecules (ISSN 2218-273X). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Structure and Dynamics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 108
Special Issue Editor
Interests: membrane biochemistry; biophysics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Central to the photosynthetic membranes of anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria are the reaction center-photosystems (RC-PS) which catalyze the harvesting and transduction of solar energy. The numerous recent high-resolution structures, arising largely from advances in cyro-electron microscopy, have revealed a considerable diversity in the molecular architecture of both the heterodimeric Type II (pheophytin-quinone-type, quinone-reducing) RC-PSs (RC- light-harvesting 1 complexes) of purple bacteria and homodimeric Type I (Fe-S-type, ferredoxin-reducing) RC-PSs of heliobacteria, green sulfur bacteria, and chloroacetobacteria. Importantly, these latter structures have provided a considerable body of crucial evidence supporting roles for homodimeric RC-PSs in the evolution of extant heterodimeric PSI and PSII complexes of oxygenic phototrophs.
This Special Issue of Biomolecules will focus on the recent advances in understanding the structures, functions, and assembly of bacterial photosynthetic membranes. Special emphasis will be placed on how these studies are providing further insights into the evolution of oxygenic phototrophs, largely responsible for the rise in atmospheric O2 levels that facilitated the subsequent evolution of life on Earth. Additionally, we will address the manner in which these new structures form the basis for the construction of improved biohybrid and biomimetic photoelectrochemical devices, as well as molecular dynamics simulations serving to test hypothetical mechanisms which these structures have inspired.
Prof. Dr. Robert A. Niederman
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- anoxygenic phototrophs
- light harvesting
- membrane dynamics
- molecular evolution
- reaction centers
