The structure and function of bacterial light-harvesting complexes (Review)

Law, Christopher J.
Roszak, Aleksander W.
Southall, June
Gardiner, Alastair T.
Isaacs, Neil W.
Cogdell, Richard J.

^†Division of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and ^‡Department of Chemistry, Institute of Biomedical & Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Received 16 January, 2004; revised 13 March, 2004

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

Molecular Membrane Biology 21(3):p 183-191, May-June 2004.

The harvesting of solar radiation by purple photosynthetic bacteria is achieved by circular, integral membrane pigment-protein complexes. There are two main types of light-harvesting complex, termed LH2 and LH1, that function to absorb light energy and to transfer that energy rapidly and efficiently to the photochemical reaction centres where it is trapped. This mini-review describes our present understanding of the structure and function of the purple bacterial light-harvesting complexes.