Rhodobacter sphaeroides is a purple bacterium that can obtain energy through photosynthesis. Its best growth conditions are anaerobic phototrophy (photoheterotrophic and photoautotrophic) and aerobic chemoheterotrophy in the absence of light. Rhodobacter sphaeroides is also able to fix nitrogen. This bacterium is one of the most pivotal organisms in the study of bacterial photosynthesis. It requires no unusual conditions for growth and is incredibly efficient. The regulation of its photosynthetic machinery is of great interest to researchers, as R. sphaeroides has an intricate system for sensing O2 tensions. Reaction center light-harvesting 1 (RC-LH1) complexes are the essential components of bacterial photosynthesis. The membrane-intrinsic LH1 complex absorbs light and the energy migrates to an enclosed RC where a succession of electron and proton transfers conserves the energy as a quinol, which is exported to the cytochrome bc1 complex. In some RC-LH1 variants quinols can diffuse through small pores in a fully circular, 16-subunit LH1 ring, while in others missing LH1 subunits create a gap for quinol export. Here you can see a lateral artistic view of the RC-LH1 core structure from Rhodobacter sphaeroides determined by CryoEM at a very high resolution (PDB code: 7PIL)
#molecularart ... #immolecular ... #photosynthesis ... #bacteria ... #rhodobacter ... #lightharvesting ... #macrocomplex ... #cryoem
Rendered with @proteinimaging and polished with @corelphotopaint
#molecularart ... #immolecular ... #photosynthesis ... #bacteria ... #rhodobacter ... #lightharvesting ... #macrocomplex ... #cryoem
Rendered with @proteinimaging and polished with @corelphotopaint
