Nature Communications (Nov 2020)

Light-driven formation of manganese oxide by today’s photosystem II supports evolutionarily ancient manganese-oxidizing photosynthesis

  • Petko Chernev,
  • Sophie Fischer,
  • Jutta Hoffmann,
  • Nicholas Oliver,
  • Ricardo Assunção,
  • Boram Yu,
  • Robert L. Burnap,
  • Ivelina Zaharieva,
  • Dennis J. Nürnberg,
  • Michael Haumann,
  • Holger Dau

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19852-0
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Photosynthetic formation of manganese (Mn) oxides from dissolved Mn ions was proposed to occur in ancestral photosystems before oxygenic photosynthesis evolved. Here, the authors provide evidence for this hypothesis by showing that photosystem II devoid of the Mn cluster oxidises Mn ions leading to formation of Mn-oxide nanoparticles.