World’s First Elucidation of the Structure of the Light-Harvesting Functional Substance of a Photosynthetic Bacterium: Discovery of the Layered Structure of the Bacteriochlorophyll c Complex

A joint research team led by Dr. Tadashi Shimizu, who is a Group Leader in the Nano Characterization Center at the National Institute for Materials Science (President: Prof. Teruo Kishi), succeeded in a detailed elucidation of the structure of the molecule called bacteriochlorophyll c, which is a kind of chlorophyll, in actual living bodies using the carbon and magnesium solid-state NMR and other techniques. Specifically, although it had long been known that groups of roughly 100 molecule scale coalesce until they form a layered structure called chlorosomes, in this work, it was possible to show from experimental results that one class is designated from among the 6 proposed classes of layered structures. It was also possible to show that the cause of the layered structure formed by bonding between pairs of molecules is chemical bonding between water molecules and magnesium. These facts were discovered for the first time in the world.