The first step of the photosynthesis is energy transfer from
photo-excited pigments to the reaction center where charge
separation takes place. This energy transfer process is difficult
to study on molecular basis because molecular properties are
averaged over structurally heterogeneous ensemble of the
light-harvesting (LH) pigment-protein complexes. Recent developments
of lasers and photo-detectors enable spectroscopy of individual
molecules, providing direct access to photo-physics of individual
complexes. We have built a laser-scanning confocal fluorescence
microscope operating at liquid helium temperature. The sample is
kept at 1.5 K to fix conformation of the protein. In order to
investigate LH complexes in natural environment, LH complexes
extracted and purified in the micelle of LDAO or OG are transferred
into lipid bilayer by dialysis. LH complex to lipid bilayer ratio of
5:3000 turned out to produce aggregate of LH complexes.
Photo-bleaching of the aggregate indicates energy transfer among
complexes. Emission from an aggregate of 4-5 complexes decay
exponentially to the level of a single complex, and the remaining
emission is bleached in one step. |