Biological complexity: photosynthesis makes O2 from water (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, June 04, 2020, 21:35 (1422 days ago) @ David Turell

Still not fully understood:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200604111643.htm

"Life depends on the oxygen that plants and algae split from water; how they do it is still a mystery,

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"'With this technique, we get the overall picture of how the entire protein structure dynamically changes and we see the chemical intricacies occurring at the reaction site," said co-lead author Junko Yano, a chemist senior scientist in Berkeley

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"Traditional crystallography methods often require the sample proteins to be frozen; consequently, they can only generate snapshots of static proteins. This limitation makes it difficult for scientists to get a handle on how proteins actually behave in living organisms, because the molecules morph between different physical states during chemical reactions.

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"'The water-splitting reaction in photosynthesis is a cyclical process that needs four photons and cycles between four stable 'states,'" said Yano. "Previously, we could only take pictures of these four states. But by taking multiple snapshots in time, we now can visualize how one state goes to the other."

"'We saw, really nicely, how the structure changes step-by-step as it transforms from one state to the next state," said Jan F. Kern, MBIB chemist and co-author. "It is pretty exciting, because we can see the 'cause and effect' and the role that each moving atom plays in this transition.'"

Comment: Imagine the complexity of a giant enzyme molecule changing its shape as if it can think and conform to the next needed posture! Just following instructions. But remember we wouldn't be here unless this highly complex process didn't appear. Not by magic.