The interface between plant organelles and non-biological nanostructures has the potential to impart organelles with new and enhanced functions. Here, we show that single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) passively transport and irreversibly localize within the lipid envelope of extracted plant chloroplasts, promote over three times higher photosynthetic activity than that of controls, and enhanc...

In cyanobacteria, respiratory electron transport takes place in close proximity to photosynthetic electron transport, because the complexes required for both processes are located within the thylakoid membranes. The balance of electron transport routes is crucial for cell physiology, yet the factors that control the predominance of particular pathways are poorly understood. Here we use a combin...

Owing amongst other to its high electron mobility, fullerene C70, has been widely used as an electron transporting layer in organic solar cells. In this research, we report the use of C70 thin films as electron transport layers of planar perovskite solar cells (PSCs) using a conventional device structure. The thickness of the C70 layer has been optimized to achieve the best efficiency of 12%. I...

The effect of strong irradiance (Q000 micromole photons per square meter per second) on PSII heterogeneity in intact cells of Chiamydomonas reinhardtii was investigated. Low light (LL, 15 micromole photons per square meter per second) grown C. reinhardtii are photoinhibited upon exposure to strong irradiance, and the loss of photosynthetic functioning is due to damage to PSII. Under physiologic...

A series of oligoesters based on a rigid triphenyl-diyne core is described. The molecules were readily synthesized from key intermediates, and retained good solubility properties. One of the compounds displayed modest ion transport activity in vesicles, was capable of forming highly conducting single channels in planar bilayers and exhibited an irregular non-linear current-voltage response. All...

Fluorescein is one of most used fluorescent labels for characterizing biological systems, such as proteins, and is used in fluorescence microscopy. However, if fluorescein is to be used for quantitative measurements involving proteins then one must account for the fact that the fluorescence of fluorescein-labeled protein can be affected by the presence of intrinsic amino acids residues, such as...

In this research, we demonstrated that the plastoquinone-related electron-transport kinetics in photosynthesis could be sufficiently described with as few as three state variables, Q(A)(-), Q(B)(-), and Q(B)(2-). A third-order kinetic model structure was developed with delayed fluorescence as the measurable output. Delayed fluorescence emissions from drought-stressed, DCMU [3-(3,4-dichloropheny...

Regulation of nonradiative dissipation of absorbed light energy in PSII is an indispensable process to avoid photoinhibition in plants. To dissect molecular mechanisms of the regulation, we identified Arabidopsis mutants with reduced quenching of Chl fluorescence using a fluorescence imaging system. By analyses of Chl fluorescence induction pattern in the light and quantum yield of both photosy...