Oxygen evolving complex in photosystem II: better than excellent.

The Oxygen Evolving Complex in photosystem II, which is responsible for the oxidation of water to oxygen in plants, algae and cyanobacteria, contains a cluster of one calcium and four manganese atoms. This cluster serves as a model for the splitting of water by energy obtained from sunlight. The recent published data on the mechanism and the structure of photosystem II provide a detailed architecture of the oxygen-evolving complex and the surrounding amino acids. Biomimetically, we expect to learn some strategies from this natural system to synthesize an efficient catalyst for water oxidation, that is necessary for artificial photosynthesis.