Mimicking the Oxygen-Evolving Center in Photosynthesis

Yang Chen; Boran Xu; Ruoqing Yao; Changhui Chen; Chunxi Zhang

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.929532

Mimicking the Oxygen-Evolving Center in Photosynthesis

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Jul 7:13:929532. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.929532. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Yang Chen^{1

2}, Boran Xu^{1

2}, Ruoqing Yao^{1

2}, Changhui Chen¹, Chunxi Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Photochemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Abstract

The oxygen-evolving center (OEC) in photosystem II (PSII) of oxygenic photosynthetic organisms is a unique heterometallic-oxide Mn₄CaO₅-cluster that catalyzes water splitting into electrons, protons, and molecular oxygen through a five-state cycle (S_n, n = 0 ~ 4). It serves as the blueprint for the developing of the man-made water-splitting catalysts to generate solar fuel in artificial photosynthesis. Understanding the structure-function relationship of this natural catalyst is a great challenge and a long-standing issue, which is severely restricted by the lack of a precise chemical model for this heterometallic-oxide cluster. However, it is a great challenge for chemists to precisely mimic the OEC in a laboratory. Recently, significant advances have been achieved and a series of artificial Mn₄XO₄-clusters (X = Ca/Y/Gd) have been reported, which closely mimic both the geometric structure and the electronic structure, as well as the redox property of the OEC. These new advances provide a structurally well-defined molecular platform to study the structure-function relationship of the OEC and shed new light on the design of efficient catalysts for the water-splitting reaction in artificial photosynthesis.

Keywords: Mn4CaO4-cluster; artificial photosynthesis; oxygen-evolving center; photosystem II; water-splitting reaction.

Publication types

Review