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Electron donors and acceptors in the initial steps of photosynthesis in purple bacteria: a personal account

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Abstract

The discovery by Louis N. M. Duysens in the 1950s that illumination of photosynthetic purple bacteria can cause oxidation of either a bacteriochlorophyll complex (P) or a cytochrome was followed by an extended period of uncertainty as to which of these processes was the `primary' photochemical reaction. Similar questions arose later about the roles of bacteriopheophytin (BPh) and quinones as the initial electron acceptor. This is a personal account of kinetic measurements that showed that electron transfer from P to BPh occurs in the initial step, and that the oxidized bacteriochlorophyll complex (P+) then oxidizes the cytochrome while the reduced BPh transfers an electron to a quinone.

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    William W. Parson

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Parson, W.W. Electron donors and acceptors in the initial steps of photosynthesis in purple bacteria: a personal account. Photosynthesis Research 76, 81–92 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024983926707

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