Light-harvesting complexes of green plants Light-harvesting complexes of green plants The light-harvesting complex (or antenna complex) is an array of protein and chlorophyll molecules embedded in the thylakoid membrane of plants, which transfer light energy to one chlorophyll "a" molecule at the reaction center of a photosystem. The antenna pigments are predominantly chlorophyll "b", xanthophylls, and carotenes. Chlorophyll "a" is known as the core pigment. Their absorption spectra are non-overlapping and broaden the range of light that can be absorbed in photosynthesis. The carotenoids have another role as an antioxidant to prevent photo-oxidative damage of chlorophyll molecules. Each antenna complex has between 250 and 400
Photosynthesis Cycle. Nobel Prize-winning scientist Rudolph A. Marcus was able to discover the function and significance of the electron transport chain. Otto Heinrich Warburg and Dean Burk discovered the I-quantum photosynthesis reaction that splits the CO, activated by the respiration. In 1950, first experimental evidence for the existence of photophosphorylation "in vivo" was presented by Otto Kandler using intact "Chlorella" cells and interpreting his findings as light-dependent ATP formation. In 1954, Daniel I. Arnon et al. discovered photophosphorylation "in vitro" in isolated chloroplasts with the help of P. Louis N.M. Duysens and Jan Amesz discovered that chlorophyll a will absorb one