2002/07/25 by Sanghyun Park, Melih K. Sener, Deyu Lu +1
Physics and Astronomy · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #physics.bio-ph #q-bio
published as Journal of Chemical Physics 119, 1313 (2003) · 4 pages including 1 color figure
arxiv created 2002/07/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Photosystem I is a protein-pigment complex that performs photosynthesis in plants, green algae, and cyanobacteria. It contains an aggregate of chlorophylls that absorbs light and delivers the resulting electronic excitation to the special pair of chlorophylls where the excitation energy is used for producing charge separation across the cell membrane. The seemingly random arrangement of chlorophylls in photosystem I poses the question which pathways excitation migration follows towards the special pair after absorption of light at any of its chlorophylls. We employ a master equation to describe the process of excitation migration in photosystem I, and find representative paths of excitation migration based on the mean first-passage time from each chlorophyll to the special pair. The resulting paths, beginning at each of the chlorophylls and ending at the special pair, provide a complete yet distilled picture of the excitation migration towards the special pair.