Bacteriorhodopsin: Photosignal transduction and photoenergy transduction in different biological systems

✍ Scribed by Bogomolni, Roberto A. ;Stoeckenius, Walther

• Book ID: 102438385
• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1974
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 334 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0091-7419
• DOI: 10.1002/jss.400020520

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Living organisms use light as a source of energy and as a source of information. They have developed highly specialized photoenergy and photosignal transducing devices which serve these functions. Membranes are essential parts of both photosignal and photoenergy transducing systems.

In photoenergy transduction a substantial part of the absorbed energy is conserved for times very long compared to the lifetime of excited states and converted finally to chemical free energy of ATP and other forms in which it can be stored for further use by the organism. In photosignal transduction light typically triggers an event which dissipates much more energy than is absorbed in the form of light. The additional energy had been stored previously by the organism through some energy transducing systems.