Saggu, M.; Fried, S. D.; Boxer, S. G. “Local and Global Electric Field Asymmetry in Photosynthetic Reaction Centers.” J. Phys. Chem. B 2019, 123, 1527-1536. [DOI]
During the primary event of photosynthesis, electrons are removed from a pair of chlorophyll molecules inside reaction centers and used to generate energy. A mysterious feature of this long-distance electron transfer is that reaction centers are symmetric with two similar subunits that electrons could traverse; however, only one subunit (the L-side) is used. In this work, we use the Vibrational Stark Effect and electrostatic modeling to explain why and how this unidirectional electron transfer is achieved.