Analysis and Reconstitution of Chlorophyll-Proteins

It is hard to believe that only some 30 years ago, it was a matter of debate whether chlorophyll (Chl) and other photosynthesis pigments are protein-bound or just dissolved in plant membranes. Philip Thornber, who vividly described this debate in his recollection of photosynthesis research in the 1960s (90 ), was one of the exponents who finally convinced their colleagues that most, if not all, Chl in plants is in fact organized in protein complexes. It was his laboratory that devised quite a number of chromatographic and electrophoretic techniques for isolating (bacterio)chlorophyll-containing complexes from bacteria and plants. These isolation techniques later paved the way for structural analyses of, e.g., photosynthetic reaction centers of purple bacteria (24 ) as well as bacterial (53 ) and plant (49 ) light-harvesting complexes (LHC).