, <\/em>the team studied groups of proteins \u2014 called Photosystem I \u2014 that help transport electrons after light is captured during photosynthesis.<\/p>\n\u201cThis pathway shapes how energy moves at the molecular level,\u201d says Chemistry PhD student Subrat Sethy, the study\u2019s lead author. \u201cWe wanted to understand how the surrounding protein environment influences that pathway under different light conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Using computational chemistry methods, the researchers looked at how the local protein environment shapes the energy landscape around the iron-sulfur clusters, small metal-containing centres that play a key role in moving electrons through Photosystem I.<\/p>\n
Sethy says the calculations showed the basic electron-transfer framework remains the same under visible and far-red light conditions, but the surrounding protein environment can shift in subtle ways, effectively fine-tuning how electrons move through the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is scientifically exciting because it shows a principle of biological design,\u201d says Sethy. \u201cThe system does not need to rebuild the entire pathway. Instead, it can preserve the core structure while fine-tuning the local environment around it, helping electrons move efficiently under different light conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matta Kaur says the two studies give a more detailed picture about how genes and electrons help cyanobacteria carry out photosynthesis in challenging light conditions \u201cwith extraordinary precision.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor future crop and bioenergy research, the lesson is not that we can simply copy one cyanobacterium into a crop to increase the crop\u2019s efficiency in photosynthesis,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real value is learning nature\u2019s design principles: how organisms capture difficult light, maintain efficient electron transfer and remain functional in changing environments.\u201d<\/p>\n
With that knowledge, she says the long-term goal is to inform more resilient strategies that make better use of light and energy in agriculture, biotechnology and clean energy.<\/p>\n
Funding this research is the Government of Canada\u2019s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Divya Matta Kaur is looking to a single-celled organism \u2014 commonly seen in blue-green algal blooms \u2014 for ways to help crops harness the sun\u2019s energy more efficiently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":110656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[188,55,41,1,5],"tags":[7437,15186,348,1963,15202],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110657,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110655\/revisions\/110657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}