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On destabilization of the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex of Chlorobaculum tepidum
Adam Kell1, Khem Acharya, Robert E Blankenship
1Department of Chemistry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA.
Abstract:
The Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex from the green sulfur bacterium Chlorobaculum tepidum was studied with respect to its stability. We provide a critical assessment of published and recently measured optical spectra. FMO complexes were found to destabilize over time producing spectral shifts, with destabilized samples having significantly higher hole-burning efficiencies; indicating a remodeled protein energy landscape. Observed correlated peak shifts near 825 and 815 nm suggest possible correlated (protein) fluctuations. It is proposed that the value of 35 cm(-1) widely used for reorganization energy (E λ ), which has important implications for the contributions to the coherence rate (Kreisbeck and Kramer 3:2828-2833, 2012), in various modeling studies of two-dimensional electronic spectra is overestimated. We demonstrate that the value of E λ is most likely about 15-22 cm(-1) and suggest that spectra reported in the literature (often measured on different FMO samples) exhibit varied peak positions due to different purification/isolation procedures or destabilization effects.
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