Research report 2007 - Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion

Why do plants not get sunburn?

Authors
Holzwarth, Alfred R.; Miloslavina, Yuliya; Müller, Marc G.; Szczepaniak, Malwina; Ostroumov, Evgenyi; Slavov, Chavdar
Departments

Bioanorganische Chemie (Prof. Dr. Karl Wieghardt)
MPI für bioanorganische Chemie, Mülheim an der Ruhr

Summary
Plants exhibit highly efficient protection mechanisms that prevent the damaging influence of high excessive light intensities. In these processes the excess energy absorbed in the light-harvesting complexes of the photosystems is converted into heat. Recent studies allowed to assign these protection mechanisms to specific components of the photosynthetic apparatus. In order to gain insight into these regulation mechanisms special methods of ultrafast fluorescence spectroscopy were developed which – in combination with the use of mutants – allowed to study molecular details of the protection mechanisms.

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