Purple bacteria is a type of photosynthetic organism with a light harvesting complex consisting of two pigment protein complexes referred to as LH1 and LH2. Within the photosynthetic membrane, these two complexes differ in terms of their arrangement. The LH1 complexes surrounds the reaction centre, while the LH2 complexes are arranged around the LH1 complexes and the reaction centre in a peripheral fashion. Purple bacteria use bacteriochlorophyll and carotenoids to gather light energy. These proteins are arranged in a ring-like fashion creating a cylinder that spans the membrane.