Plant and Algal PSII–LHCII Supercomplexes: Structure, Evolution and Energy Transfer

Abstract Photosynthesis is the process conducted by plants and algae to capture photons and store their energy in chemical forms. The light-harvesting, excitation transfer, charge separation and electron transfer in photosystem II (PSII) are the critical initial reactions of photosynthesis and thereby largely determine its overall efficiency. In this review, we outline the rapidly accumulating knowledge about the architectures and assemblies of plant and green algal PSII–light harvesting complex II (LHCII) supercomplexes, with a particular focus on new insights provided by the recent high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy map of the supercomplexes from a green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. We make pair-wise comparative analyses between the supercomplexes from plants and green algae to gain insights about the evolution of the PSII–LHCII supercomplexes involving the peripheral small PSII subunits that might have been acquired during the evolution and about the energy transfer pathways that define their light-harvesting and photoprotective properties.