PECASE: MICROFLUIDIC PHOTOBIOLOGY MICROSCOPY OF LIGHT HARVESTING BACTERIA AT THE SINGLE CELL LIMIT
Abstract
Photosynthesis is remarkable, achieving nearly perfect light harvesting efficiency in spite of dynamic light conditions, rapidly fluctuating molecular structure, and highly intricate energy transfer pathways. Yet, it remains unknown whether there exists a fundamental organizing principle that gives rise to robust photosynthetic light harvesting. Here, we predict that light harvesting antennae can be finely tuned to maximize power conversion efficiency by passively minimizing excitation noise, thus providing a unified theoretical basis for the experimentally observed wavelength dependence of light absorption in green plants, purple bacteria, and green sulfur bacteria. The research objectives of this proposal are two-fold: First, we propose to fabricate and characterize a novel microscope capable of measuring growth dynamics of light harvesting bacteria at the single cell limit. Second, by combining strong synergy between experiment and theory, we will use this microscope to achieve our main scientific and technical objectives: (I) demonstrate massively parallel high throughput microfluidic arrays for real-time, high data-density measurements of bacterial growth in light, (II) demonstrate a robust paradigm for photosynthetic efficiency and explore bacterial growth using data-intensive video imaging and single cell recognition, and (III) demonstrate a new optical multi-band correlation spectroscopy technique to examine the physics of noisy antennae in the light harvesting network of photosynthetic bacteria. We anticipate that measurements conducted using the proposed apparatus – the Ultra-Parallelized Microfluidic Photobiology Microscope - will give remarkably rich insight into microbial processes under illumination. In its simplest form, we will gain precise control of optical excitation at the single cell level. Our work focuses on exposing basic operating principles in complex biological networks, a burgeoning field of study that bridges physics, biology, and chemistry. No current field of research utilizes the synergistic approaches here, and the expected impact of our work may upend the current state of knowledge of light sensing in biosystems.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2021
- Source ID
- FA95502010097
Entities
People
- Nathaniel M Gabor
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Air Force
- University of California Regents