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Light polarization dependency existing in the biological photosystem and possible implications for artificial antenna systems

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Abstract

The processes of biological photosynthesis provide inspiration and valuable lessons for artificial energy collection, transfer, and conversion systems. The extraordinary efficiency of each sequential process of light to biomass conversion originates from the unique architecture and mechanism of photosynthetic proteins. Near 100% quantum efficiency of energy transfer in biological photosystems is achieved by the chlorophyll assemblies in antenna complexes, which also exhibit a significant degree of light polarization. The three-dimensional chiral assembly of chlorophylls is an optimized biological architecture that enables maximum energy transfer efficiency with precisely designed coupling between chlorophylls. In this review, we summarize the key lessons from the photosynthetic processes in biological photosystems, and move our focus to energy transfer mechanisms and the chiral structure of the chlorophyll assembly. Then, we introduce recent approaches and possible implications to realize the biological energy transfer processes on bioinspired scaffold-based artificial antenna systems.

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Adapted from Georgakopoulou et al. (2002) with permission from Elsevier. b Circular dichroism and absorbance spectra of LHCII of spinach. Adapted from Xu et al. (2015). c Chlorophyll assemblies of LH2 of Rhodopseudomonas acidophila (PDB 1KZU). Reprinted with permission from Mirkovic et al. (2017). Copyright 2017 American Chemical Society. d Chlorophyll assemblies of LHCII of Spinacia oleracea (PDB 1RWT)

Fig. 3

Adapted with permission from Springer et al. (2012). Copyright 2012 American Chemical Society. b Artificial light harvesting by several randomly oriented, light-absorbing donor pigments (green) funneling the energy to individual acceptor molecules (red) that all have the same orientation with respect to the laboratory frame. Reprinted from Pieper et al. (2018)

Fig. 4

Adapted with permission from Kuciauskas et al. (2010). Copyright 2010 American Chemical Society. b Schematic illustration of complex formation of MBP-rubα-YH/Zn-Chlorin dimer complexes. Adapted with permission from Sakai et al. (2013). Copyright 2013 American Chemical Society. c Schematic illustration of energy transfer efficiency for molecular dyads using zinc porphyrin and free-base porphyrin on peptoid helices. d Schematic illustration of host–guest complexation between metalloporphyrin-peptoid conjugate and chiral guests. Reprinted from Lee et al. (2018d)

Fig. 5

Adapted with permission from Kang et al. (2017). b Characteristic ECCD signal of porphyrins according to the structural change of peptoid (red: right-handed helix, blue: threaded-loop). Reproduced from Yang et al. (2017a) with permission from The Royal Society of Chemistry

Fig. 6

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Creative Materials Discovery Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF-2017M3D1A1039377 to KTN and NRF-2018M3D1A1052659 to JS). KTN is also supported by the KIST-SNU Joint Research Lab project (2V06170) under the KIST Institutional Program funded by the Korea government (Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning), the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (NRF-2017R1A2B3012003), and the Global Frontier R&D Program of the Center for Multiscale Energy System funded by the National Research Foundation under the Ministry of Science and ICT, Korea (2012M3A6A7054855).

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Correspondence to Jiwon Seo or Ki Tae Nam.

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Im, S.W., Ha, H., Yang, W. et al. Light polarization dependency existing in the biological photosystem and possible implications for artificial antenna systems. Photosynth Res 143, 205–220 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-019-00682-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-019-00682-1

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