Structure and energy transfer pathways of the plant photosystem I-LHCI supercomplex

Photosystem I (PSI) is one of the two photosystems in oxygenic photosynthesis, and absorbs light energy to generate reducing power for the reduction of NADP+ to NADPH with a quantum efficiency close to 100%. The plant PSI core forms a supercomplex with light-harvesting complex I (LHCI) with a total molecular weight of over 600 kDa. Recent X-ray structure analysis of the PSI-LHCI membrane-protein supercomplex has revealed detailed arrangement of the light-harvesting pigments and other cofactors especially within LHCI. Here we introduce the overall structure of the PSI-LHCI supercomplex, and then focus on the excited energy transfer (EET) pathways from LHCI to the PSI core and photoprotection mechanisms based on the structure obtained.