Rhodopseudomonas viridis

MR Gunner, B Homg. Electrostatic control of midpoint potentials m the cytochrome subunit of the Rhodopseudomonas viridis reaction center. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 88 9151-9155, 1991. 

MR Gunner, A Nicholls, B Honig. Electrostatic potentials in Rhodopseudomonas viridis reaction centers Implications for the driving force and directionality of electron transfer. J Phys Chem 100 4277-4291, 1996. 

No region of the cytochrome penetrates the membrane nevertheless, the cytochrome subunit is an integral part of this reaction center complex, held through protein-protein interactions similar to those in soluble globular multisubunit proteins. The protein-protein interactions that bind cytochrome in the reaction center of Rhodopseudomonas viridis are strong enough to survive the purification procedure. However, when the reaction center of Rhodohacter sphaeroides is isolated, the cytochrome is lost, even though the structures of the L, M, and H subunits are very similar in the two species. 

Figure 12.15 Schematic arrangement of the photosynthetic pigments in the reaction center of Rhodopseudomonas viridis. The twofold symmetry axis that relates the L and the M subunits is aligned vertically in the plane of the paper. Electron transfer proceeds preferentially along the branch to the right. The periplasmic side of the membrane is near the top, and the cytoplasmic side is near the bottom of the structure. (From B. Furugren, courtesy of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.)...

Deisenhofer, J., Michael, H. Nobel lecture. The photosynthetic reaction center from the purple bacterium Rhodopseudomonas viridis. EMBO f. 8 2149-2169, 1989. 

Deisenhofer, J., et al. Structure of the protein subunits in the photosynthetic reaction center of Rhodopseudomonas viridis at 3 A resolution. Nature 318 618-624, 1985. 

Michel, H. Three-dimensional crystals of a membrane protein complex. The photosynthetic reaction center from Rhodopseudomonas viridis.. Mol. Biol. 

Michel, H., et al. The "heavy" subunit of the photosynthetic reaction center from Rhodopseudomonas viridis isolation of the gene, nucleotide and amino acid sequence. EMBO J. 4 1667-1672, 1985. 

What molecular architecture couples the absorption of light energy to rapid electron-transfer events, in turn coupling these e transfers to proton translocations so that ATP synthesis is possible Part of the answer to this question lies in the membrane-associated nature of the photosystems. Membrane proteins have been difficult to study due to their insolubility in the usual aqueous solvents employed in protein biochemistry. A major breakthrough occurred in 1984 when Johann Deisenhofer, Hartmut Michel, and Robert Huber reported the first X-ray crystallographic analysis of a membrane protein. To the great benefit of photosynthesis research, this protein was the reaction center from the photosynthetic purple bacterium Rhodopseudomonas viridis. This research earned these three scientists the 1984 Nobel Prize in chemistry. 

Deisenhofer, J., and Michel, H., 1989. The photosyndietic reaction center from die purple bacterium Rhodopseudomonas viridis. Science 245 1463-1473. Published version of die Nobel laureate address by the researchers who first elucidated the molecnlar structure of a photosyndietic reacdon center. 

It is interesting to compare the thermal-treatment effect on the secondary structure of two proteins, namely, bacteriorhodopsin (BR) and photosynthetic reaction centers from Rhodopseudomonas viridis (RC). The investigation was done for three types of samples for each object-solution, LB film, and self-assembled film. Both proteins are membrane ones and are objects of numerous studies, for they play a key role in photosynthesis, providing a light-induced charge transfer through membranes—electrons in the case of RC and protons in the case of BR. 

Thompson MA, Zemer MC (1991) A theoretical examination of the electronic structure and spectroscopy of the photosynthetic reaction center from Rhodopseudomonas viridis. J Am Chem Soc 113 8210-8215... 

Ludwig, F.R., and Jay, F.A. (1985) Reversible chemical cross-linking of the light-harvesting polypeptides of Rhodopseudomonas viridis. Eur. J. Biochem. 151, 83-87. 

Until a recent x-ray diffraction study (17) provided direct evidence of the arrangement of the pigment species in the reaction center of the photosynthetic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas Viridis, a considerable amount of all evidence pertaining to the internal molecular architecture of plant or bacterial reaction centers was inferred from the results of in vitro spectroscopic experiments and from work on model systems (5, 18, 19). Aside from their use as indirect probes of the structure and function of plant and bacterial reaction centers, model studies have also provided insights into the development of potential biomimetic solar energy conversion systems. In this regard, the work of Netzel and co-workers (20-22) is particularly noteworthy, and in addition, is quite relevant to the material discussed at this conference. 

Inhibitors have been used to investigate the biosynthesis of 1,2-dihydroneuro-sporene [l,2,7,8-tetrahydro-i/, i/f-carotene (143)] and related 1,2-dihydro-carotenoids in Rhodopseudomonas viridis, and possible alternative sequences are presented.The C-1,2 hydrogenation reaction is inhibited by CPTA [2-(4-chlorophenylthio)triethylammonium chloride], a compound known to inhibit cyclization and C-1,2-hydration in other systems, thus indicating possible similarity of the reactions involved. 

Figure 6.2. (a) Photos3fnthetic reaction center of Rhodopseudomonas viridis Reprinted from the Protein Data Bank, H. M. Berman, J. Westbrook, Z. Feng, G. Gilhland, T. N. Bhat, H. Weissig, I. N. Shindyalov, P. E. Bourne, Nucleic Acids Res. 2000, 1, 235 (http // www.pdb.org/) PDB ID IDXR, C. R. D. Lancaster, M. Bibikova, P. Sabatino, D. Oesterhelt, H. Michel, J. Biol. Chem. 2000, 275, 39364. b) arrangement of the essential components in the purple bacterium Rh. sphaeroides (see color insert). [Adapted from Ref. 5.]... 

Myxococcus fulvus (D isomer) Rhodopseudomona viridis (l isomer) 711... 

Thus, the important question of the secondary structure of the transmembrane elements can only be addressed with models and by structural comparison with other transmembrane proteins for which the structure has been resolved. Detailed information on the structure of transmembrane elements is available for the photoreaction center of Rhodopseudomonas viridis (review Deisenhofer and Michel, 1989), cytochrome c oxidase (Iwata et al., 1995) and the OmpF porin of E. coli (Cowan et al., 1992 Fig. 5.3), amongst others. In addition, high resolution electron microscopic investigations and X-ray studies of bacteriorhodopsin, a light-driven ion pump with seven transmembrane elements, have yielded valuable information on the structure and configuration of membrane-spaiming elements (Henderson et al., 1990 Kimura et al., 1997 Pebay-Peyrula et al., 1997 Fig. 5.4). With the successful crystallization of the photoreaction center of Rhodopseudomonas viridis, a membrane protein was displayed at atomic resolution for the first time (Deisenhofer et al., 1985). The membrane-... 

The three-dimensional structures of the reaction centers of purple bacteria (Rhodopseudomonas viridis and Rhodobacter sphaeroides), deduced from x-ray crystallography, shed light on how phototransduction takes place in a pheophytin-quinone reaction center. The R. viridis reaction center (Fig. 19-48a) is a large protein complex containing four polypeptide subunits and 13 cofactors two pairs of bacterial chlorophylls, a pair of pheophytins, two quinones, a nonheme iron, and four hemes in the associated c-type cytochrome. 

Reaction centers of purple bacteria. The exact composition varies, but the properties of reaction centers from several genera of purple bacteria are similar. In Rhodopseudomonas viridis there are three peptide chains designated H, M, and L (for heavy, medium and light) with molecular masses of 33,28, and 24 kDa, respectively. Together with a 38-kDa tetraheme cytochrome (which is absent from isolated reaction centers of other species) they form a 1 1 1 1 complex. This constitutes reaction center P870. The three-dimensional structure of this entire complex has been determined to 0.23-nm resolution288 319 323 (Fig. 23-31). In addition to the 1182 amino acid residues there are four molecules of bacteriochlorophyll (BChl), two of bacteriopheophytin (BPh), a molecule of menaquinone-9, an atom of nonheme iron, and four molecules of heme in the c type cytochrome. In 1984, when the structure was determined by Deisenhofer and Michel, this was the largest and most complex object whose atomic structure had been described. It was also one of the first known structures for a membrane protein. The accomplishment spurred an enormous rush of new photosynthesis research, only a tiny fraction of which can be mentioned here. 

Figure 23-31 (A) Stereoscopic ribbon drawing of the photosynthetic reaction center proteins of Rhodopseudomonas viridis. Bound chromophores are drawn as wire models. The H subunit is at the bottom the L and M subunits are in the center. The upper globule is the cytochrome c. The view is toward the flat side of the L, M module with the L subunit toward the observer. (B) Stereo view of only the bound chromophores. The four heme groups Hel-He4, the bacteriochlorophylls (Bchl) and bacteriopheophytins (BPh), the quinones QA and QB/ and iron (Fe) are shown. The four hemes of the cytochrome are not shown in...

Rhodopseudomonas viridis (now Blasatochloris) Green plants and Cyanobacteria Green sulfur bacteria, heliobacteriaa... 

Reaction centers of purple bacteria typically contain three polypeptides, four molecules of bacteriochlorophyll, two bacteriopheophytins, two quinones, and one nonheme iron atom. In some bacterial species, both quinones are ubiquinone. In others, one of the quinones is menaquinone (vitamin K2), a naphthoquinone that resembles ubiquinone in having a long side chain (fig. 15.10). Reaction centers of some species, such as Rhodopseudomonas viridis, also have a cytochrome subunit with four c-type hemes. 

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