Inactivation of the extrinsic subunit of photosystem II, PsbU, in Synechococcus PCC 7942 results in elevated resistance to oxidative stress

AbstractPsbU is a subunit of the extrinsic complex attached to the core of photosystem II. A PsbU-mutant of Synechococcus PCC 7942 was isolated based on its elevated resistance to externally applied oxidative stress. PsbU-mutant exhibits fast rates of degradation of the photosystem II core protein, D1, under sub-saturating as well as high-light conditions. While forward electron transfer is not affected, back electron flow is severely impaired in the mutant. We suggest that impairment of psbU results in production of reactive-oxygen-species, which trigger antioxidative mechanisms even under standard growth conditions. Accordingly, when challenged with external oxidative stress, these cells are more resistant than wild type cells

Calculations of time-dependent observables in non-Hermitian quantum mechanics: The problem and a possible solution

The solutions of the time independent Schrodinger equation for non-Hermitian (NH) Hamiltonians have been extensively studied and calculated in many different fields of physics by using L^2 methods that originally have been developed for the calculations of bound states. The existing non-Hermitian formalism breaks down when dealing with wavepackets(WP). An open question is how time dependent expectation values can be calculated when the Hamiltonian is NH ? Using the F-product formalism, which was recently proposed, [J. Phys. Chem., 107, 7181 (2003)] we calculate the time dependent expectation values of different observable quantities for a simple well known study test case model Hamiltonian. We carry out a comparison between these results with those obtained from conventional(i.e., Hermitian) quantum mechanics (QM) calculations. The remarkable agreement between these results emphasizes the fact that in the NH-QM, unlike standard QM, there is no need to split the entire space into two regions; i.e., the interaction region and its surrounding. Our results open a door for a type of WP propagation calculations within the NH-QM formalism that until now were impossible.Comment: 20 pages, 5 Postscript figures. To be Published in Physical Review