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Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol.114, No.33, 10905-10911, 2010
Ligand Environment of the S-2 State of Photosystem II: A Study of the Hyperfine Interactions of the Tetranuclear Manganese Cluster by 2D N-14 HYSCORE Spectroscopy
The solar water-splitting protein complex, photosystem II, catalyzes the light-driven oxidation of water to dioxygen in Nature. The four-electron oxidation reaction of water occurs at the tetranuclear manganese-calcium-oxo catalytic cluster that is present in the oxygen-evolving complex of photosystem II. The mechanism of light-driven water oxidation has been a subject of intense interest, and the oxygen-evolving complex of photosystem II has been studied extensively by structural and biochemical methods. While the recent X-ray crystal structures and single-crystal EXAFS investigations provide a model for the geometry of the tetranuclear manganese-calcium-oxo catalytic cluster, there is limited knowledge of the protein environment that surrounds the catalytic cluster. In this study, we demonstrate the application of two-dimensional hyperfine sublevel correlation spectroscopy to determine the magnetic couplings of the catalytic cluster with the N-14 atoms of surrounding amino acid residues in the S-2 state of the oxygen-evolving complex of photosystem II. We utilize two-dimensional difference spectroscopy to facilitate unambiguous assignments of the spectral features and identify at least three separate N-14 atoms that are interacting with the catalytic cluster in the S-2 state. The results presented here, for the first time, identify previously unknown ligands to the catalytic cluster of photosystem II and provide avenues for the assignment of residues by site-directed mutagenesis and the refinement of computational and mechanistic models of photosystem II.