The electronic structure of protein chains L and M in photosynthetic reaction center (PRC) of Rhodobacter sphaeroides (Van Niel) Imhoff, Truper et Pfennig) was studied by using the Overlapping Dimer Approximation method and the Extended Negative Factor Counter method at ab initio level. The result indicated that: (1) Amino acid residues, the molecular orbitals of which composed the main components of frontier orbitals of protein chain L (M), are located at the random coil areas of chain L (alpha helix areas of chain M). Since the random coil is flexible and more easy to change its conformation in the electron transfer process and to reduce the energy of the system, and the structure of the alpha helix is reletively stable, this difference might be one of the causes for the electron transfer in photosynthetic reaction center (PRC) only takes place along the L branch. (2) The His residues which axially coordinated to the 'special pair' P and accessory chlorophyll molecules (ABChls) are essentially important for the E-LUMO levels of P and ABChl. But, the corresponding molecular orbitals of these His residues do not appear in the composition of frontier orbitals of protein chains. It means that the interaction between pigment molecules and protein chains do not influence the contribution to the frontier orbitals of protein chains explicitly, but influences the corresponding E-LUMO levels significantly.
The mechanism of the proton_transfer_coupled electron transfer (PT_ET) reactions between the menaquinone Q A (MQ 1) and ubiquinone Q B (UQ 1) in the bacterial photosynthetic reaction center of Rhodopseudomona viridis was studied by using the B3LYP/6_31G(d) method. The changes of standard Gibbs free energy ΔG 0 of all possible reactions followed the ET reaction (1) were calculated. The results indicated that: (1) according to the ΔG 0 values of corresponding reactions, UQ 1 could not accept two electrons from MQ - 1 continually without the coupled proton transfer reactions. Because of ΔG 0 2b 0, ΔG 0 3b 0 and ΔG 0 4b 0, the corresponding PT_ET reactions could take place along with reactions (2b), (3b) and (4b) sequentially; (2) on the gaseous condition, the first and second transferred protons (H +(1) and H +(2)) from the surrounding amino acid residues or water molecules will combine with the oxygen No.7 and oxygen No.8 of UQ 1, respectively. On the condition of protein surroundings (by SCRF model, ε =4.0), the results are converse but the energy difference between the combination of H +(1) and H +(2) with UQ - 1 is quite small. The difference of ΔG 0 values between the corresponding reactions in gaseous surroundings and the SCRF model is not significant; (3) the PT_ET reactions between MQ 1 - and UQ 1 - should be as follows: MQ 1 -+UQ 1→MQ 1+UQ 1 - (1) UQ 1 - ( O (7) )+H +( HisL 190)→UQ 1H(2b) ( Gas ) or UQ 1 - ( O (8) )+H +(H 2O)→UQ 1H (2b') ( SCRF ) or UQ 1 - ( O (8) )+H + ( ArgL 217)→UQ 1H(2b') ( SCRF ) MQ 1 -+UQ 1H→MQ 1+UQ 1H - (3b) ( Gas ) MQ 1 -+UQ 1H→MQ 1+UQ 1H -(3b') ( SCR F) UQ 1H -+H +(H 2O)→UQ 1H 2(4b) ( Gas ) or UQ 1H -+H + ( ArgL 217)→UQ 1H 2 (4b) ( Gas ) or UQ 1H -+H + ( HisL 190)→UQ 1H 2 (4b') ( SCRF )
