Acquirement of water-splitting ability and alteration of the charge-separation mechanism in photosynthetic reaction centers

Significance In photosynthetic reaction centers from purple bacteria (PbRC) and the water-splitting enzyme, photosystem II (PSII), light-induced electron transfer occurs only in one of the two branches irrespective of the apparent symmetry in the structures. In PSII, the protein components that are involved in the Mn 4 CaO 5 cluster or the proceeding proton-transfer pathway facilitate electron transfer along the active branch. In PbRC, most of...