Engineering of a calcium-ion binding site into the RC-LH1-PufX complex of Rhodobacter sphaeroides to enable ion-dependent spectral red-shifting.

The reaction centre-light harvesting 1 (RC-LH1) complex of Thermochromatium (Tch.) tepidum has a unique calcium-ion binding site that enhances thermal stability and red-shifts the absorption of LH1 from 880nm to 915nm in the presence of calcium-ions. The LH1 antenna of mesophilic species of phototrophic bacteria such as Rhodobacter (Rba.

Enhanced light-harvesting capacity by micellar assembly of free accessory chromophores and LH1-like antennas.

Biohybrid light-harvesting antennas are an emerging platform technology with versatile tailorability for solar-energy conversion. These systems combine the proven peptide scaffold unit utilized for light harvesting by purple photosynthetic bacteria with attached synthetic chromophores to extend solar coverage beyond that of the natural systems. Herein, synthetic unattached chromophores are employed that partition into the organized milieu (e.

Amphiphilic, hydrophilic, or hydrophobic synthetic bacteriochlorins in biohybrid light-harvesting architectures: consideration of molecular designs.

Biohybrid light-harvesting architectures can be constructed that employ native-like bacterial photosynthetic antenna peptides as a scaffold to which synthetic chromophores are attached to augment overall spectral coverage. Synthetic bacteriochlorins are attractive to enhance capture of solar radiation in the photon-rich near-infrared spectral region. The effect of the polarity of the bacteriochlorin substituents on the antenna self-assembly process was explored by the preparation of a bacteriochlorin-peptide conjugate using a synthetic amphiphilic bacteriochlorin (B1) to complement prior studies using hydrophilic (B2, four carboxylic acids) or hydrophobic (B3) bacteriochlorins.

Versatile design of biohybrid light-harvesting architectures to tune location, density, and spectral coverage of attached synthetic chromophores for enhanced energy capture.

Biohybrid antennas built upon chromophore-polypeptide conjugates show promise for the design of efficient light-capturing modules for specific purposes. Three new designs, each of which employs analogs of the β-polypeptide from Rhodobacter sphaeroides, have been investigated. In the first design, amino acids at seven different positions on the polypeptide were individually substituted with cysteine, to which a synthetic chromophore (bacteriochlorin or Oregon Green) was covalently attached.

Biohybrid photosynthetic antenna complexes for enhanced light-harvesting.

Biohybrid antenna systems have been constructed that contain synthetic chromophores attached to 31mer analogues of the bacterial photosynthetic core light-harvesting (LH1) β-polypeptide. The peptides are engineered with a Cys site for bioconjugation with maleimide-terminated chromophores, which include synthetic bacteriochlorins (BC1, BC2) with strong near-infrared absorption and commercial dyes Oregon green (OGR) and rhodamine red (RR) with strong absorption in the blue-green to yellow-orange regions. The peptides place the Cys 14 (or 6) residues before a native His site that binds bacteriochlorophyll a (BChl-a) and, like the native LH proteins, have high helical content as probed by single-reflection IR spectroscopy.