2007) and the aggregated IsiA antenna complexes from cyanobacteria (Berera et al. 2009). Figure 5 shows selected kinetic traces for LHCII in the unquenched, trimeric state (panel a) and in a quenched aggregated state PF-01367338 research buy (panel b), following a 100 fs, 10 nJ laser pulse at 675 nm. In the quenched state, the trace at 537 nm not only represents the carotenoid

S1 ESA, but it also has a positive amplitude coming from Chl ESA. It clearly shows a slower decay in the first ~10 ps compared to the decay of the Chl Qy state at 679 nm. The opposite trend is seen at 489 nm (carotenoid ground state absorption region), where the trace shows a faster decay in the first ~10 ps. If only Chl signals were to contribute

to the kinetics, one would expect homogeneous decay. Thus, in analogy with the dyad case (vide supra), the observed ΔA signals show that concomitantly with the decay of the Chl MK-1775 cost excited selleck state, a carotenoid excited state is populated. Application of a target analysis with a kinetic model that incorporates quenching and singlet–singlet annihilation (Fig. 5, panel c) revealed the SADS of the quenching state, which correspond to the carotenoid S1 state. On the basis of the wavelength of its maximum ground-state bleach, Ruban et al. (2007) concluded that Lutein 1 likely acts as a quencher of Chl excited states in this isolated system. Fig. 5 Selected kinetic traces for unquenched LHCII trimers (a) and quenched enough LHCII aggregates (b) at 677 nm (top), 489 nm (middle) and 537 nm (bottom), following a 100 fs, 10 nJ laser pulse at 675 nm. The vertical axis shows the measured change in absorption, the horizontal axis is linear up to 1 ps and logarithmic thereafter. The long short-dashed line represents the 1 ps phase due to chlorophyll excited state relaxation, the dotted line the excited state decay of chlorophyll, the dashed line the absorption changes due to the quencher Q, and the dash-dotted line the

build-up of the triplet state. The kinetic model is shown in (c) and the corresponding species-associated difference spectra (SADS) in (d). Source: Ruban et al. (2007) In conclusion, carotenoids can accept energy from a neighboring tetrapyrrole thereby acting as strong quenchers (Berera et al. 2006, 2009; Ruban et al. 2007). The carotenoid S1 state acts as a quencher and effective energy dissipator since its lifetime is 100–1,000 times shorter compared to the lifetime of the Pc or Chl excited state. By making use of ultrafast spectroscopy, we have been able to follow the process of energy dissipation in real time and to determine the underlying physical mechanism. In particular, it is important to note that the quenching phenomena in the artificial dyads, PSII, and IsiA antenna systems occur through inverted kinetic schemes where the lifetime of the quencher is inherently shorter lived than the Chl excited state.