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Title: On uncorrelated inter-monomer Förster energy transfer in Fenna–Matthews–Olson complexes

Journal Article · · Journal of the Royal Society Interface

The Fenna–Matthews–Olson (FMO) light-harvesting antenna protein of green sulfur bacteria is a long-studied pigment–protein complex which funnels energy from the chlorosome to the reaction centre where photochemistry takes place. The structure of the FMO protein from Chlorobaculum tepidum is known as a homotrimeric complex containing eight bacteriochlorophyll a per monomer. Owing to this structure FMO has strong intra-monomer and weak inter-monomer electronic coupling constants. While long-lived (sub-picosecond) coherences within a monomer have been a prevalent topic of study over the past decade, various experimental evidence supports the presence of subsequent inter-monomer energy transfer on a picosecond time scale. The latter has been neglected by most authors in recent years by considering only sub-picosecond time scales or assuming that the inter-monomer coupling between low-energy states is too weak to warrant consideration of the entire trimer. However, Förster theory predicts that energy transfer of the order of picoseconds is possible even for very weak (less than 5 cm-1) electronic coupling between chromophores. This work reviews experimental data (with a focus on emission and hole-burned spectra) and simulations of exciton dynamics which demonstrate inter-monomer energy transfer. It is shown that the lowest energy 825 nm absorbance band cannot be properly described by a single excitonic state. The energy transfer through FMO is modelled by generalized Förster theory using a non-Markovian, reduced density matrix approach to describe the electronic structure. The disorder-averaged inter-monomer transfer time across the 825 nm band is about 27 ps. While only isolated FMO proteins are presented, the presence of inter-monomer energy transfer in the context of the overall photosystem is also briefly discussed.

Research Organization:
Kansas State Univ., Manhattan, KS (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Chemical Sciences, Geosciences & Biosciences Division
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0006678
OSTI ID:
1610888
Journal Information:
Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Vol. 16, Issue 151; ISSN 1742-5689
Publisher:
The Royal SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 4 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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