Researchers in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division have used a state-of-the-art cryo-transmission electron microscope to reveal the structure of a large protein complex crucial to photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight into cellular energy.
Scientists Capture Photosynthesis in Unprecedented Detail
Using the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser, an international collaboration led by scientists at Berkeley Lab and SLAC captured the all four stable oxidation states of photosystem II— plus two transitional states—at natural temperature and the highest resolution to date.
A Surprise Just Beneath the Surface in Carbon Dioxide Experiment
Research co-led by Berkeley Lab researchers Junko Yano (MBIB) and Ethan Crumlin at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), with collaborators at Caltech’s Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), has revealed a surprising driver of a chemical process to reformulate carbon dioxide into more useful compounds. X-ray experiments coupled with theoretical models showed that oxygen atoms near the surface of a copper sample had a more dramatic effect on the early stages of a reaction with carbon dioxide than earlier theories could account for. This work could help make reactions more efficient in converting carbon dioxide into liquid fuels and other products. Read more in the News Center release.
Conveyor Belt Innovation Speeds Up Biological Discovery
Bioscientists Junko Yano, Vittal Yachandra, and Jan Kern led a multi-institutional collaboration to develop and demonstrate a novel Acoustic Droplet Ejection-“Droplet on Tape” method of sample delivery for free electron laser experiments. The study, which was published yesterday in Nature Methods, describes the techniques that were deployed at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source.
X-rays Capture Unprecedented Images of Photosynthesis in Action
An international team of scientists is getting closer to discovering how plants split water during photosynthesis and produce nearly all of the oxygen in our atmosphere. Thanks to unprecedented, atomic-scale images of a protein complex found in plants, algae, and cyanobacteria captured by ultrafast X-ray lasers, researchers conducted atomic-level experiments to help delineate the mechanism of this system that also yields the protons and electrons used to reduce carbon dioxide to carbohydrates later in the photosynthesis cycle. The effort to uncover the secrets of this protein complex, photosystem II, was led by Vittal Yachandra and Junko Yano in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division and the team’s findings were published this week in Nature.
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