Picosecond energy transfer and trapping kinetics in living cells of the green bacterium Chloroflexus aurantiacus.

The excitation energy transfer and trapping processes in intact cells of Chloroflexus aurantiacus were studied by picosecond time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. The fluorescence decay kinetics is investigated over the near infrared emission range between 730 nm and 920 nm using various excitation wavelengths and excitation intensities. The data were analyzed by global decay analysis and are presented as decay-associated spectra (DAS). The specific dependence of the decay kinetics on the excitation wavelength and on the photochemical redox state of the reaction center (RC) allows the identification of the energy transfer and trapping components. The DAS provide evidence for two chlorosomal energy transfer processes. The first one occurs between the chlorosomal bacteriochlorophyll (BChl)-c and the BChl-a792 complex (B792) in the chlorosomal baseplate with an equilibration time constant of 15-16 ps, while the second one occurs from the B792 pigments to the BChl-a806 pigments in the B806-866 complex with a time constant of 35-40 ps. The overall energy trapping process in whole cells is mainly determined by the kinetics of the primary charge separation process in the RCs. With open RCs (QA oxidized) the trapping time constant is 70-90 ps, while the trapping process with closed RCs (QA reduced) takes as long as 180-200 ps. The results on whole cells reported here are interpreted in conjunction with those reported earlier for the various isolated complexes, i.e., two different chlorosome preparations (Holzwarth, A.R., Müller, M.G. and Griebenow, K. (1990) J. Photochem. Photobiol. B 5, 457-465), the B806-866 complex (Griebenow, K., Müller, M.G. and Holzwarth, A.R. (1991) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1059, 226-232) and isolated reaction centers (Müller, M.G., Griebenow, K. and Holzwarth, A.R. (1991) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1098, 1-12). Based on these data, a unified and self-consistent scheme for the primary processes in the whole photosynthetic system of C. aurantiacus is presented. The BChl antenna pigment groups are arranged to form a linear energy transfer cascade with four energy transfer steps from shorter-wavelength- to longer-wavelength-absorbing antenna pools. The overall fluorescence decay kinetics of the photosynthetic system of C. aurantiacus turns out to be 'trap-limited' by the reaction center rather than 'diffusion-limited' by the energy transfer processes.