Credit: ASU Biodesign Institute
Using X-ray light at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley, CA, and a beamline at Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Lab, IL., Fromme’s group has now visualized the heliobacteria reaction centers for the very first time at near-atomic, 2.2-angstrom resolution (an angstrom is the width of a hydrogen atom).
They found an almost perfect symmetry in the heliobacter RC (shown by the mirror image pattern of the main protein motifs, indicated by cylinders (top image) and a close up of the exact placement of individual atoms (bottom).