Photosynthetic Reaction Centres – from Basic Research to Application Possibilities

Abstract

There is no doubt that studying the photosynthetic conversion of light into chemical energy is extremely important in many points of view: 1) technical-in order to improve the utilization of the solar energy; 2) food production – to improve the photosynthetic production of plants in agriculture; 3) ecology – keeping the primer production in ecosystems in the biosphere balanced, etc. In the photosynthetic reaction centre protein, RC, light energy is converted by a quantum yield of almost unity. There is no such a system designed by human which is able to do that. The RC purified from purple bacteria provides an extremely unique system for studying the requirements for high efficiency conversion of light into electrochemical energy. Thanks to the recent structural (e.g. crystallography (Nobel prize to Michel, Deisenhofer, Huber) and functional (Nobel prize to Marcus)) results together with the works of molecular biology, computer- and electro-techniques, a wealth of information made a relatively clear picture about the kinetics, energetics and stabilization of electron transport within this protein that opens possibilities for new generation practical applications. In this paper we provide a short summary of fields in which the reaction centre protein can be important from practical points of view.