Exploring the nature of transient biological electron transfer complexes at the single-molecule level

在光合作用和呼吸过程中，太阳能或化学能被用来沿着蛋白质链沿着转移电子，为质子电池供电。这些电子转移（ET）蛋白中的一些自由移动，在较大的膜整合蛋白之间来回穿梭电子。神秘之处在于自由移动的蛋白质如何找到它们的同源伴侣，停靠在膜表面，释放电子，然后脱离，所有这些都在几微秒内。不知何故，这些蛋白质对平衡了相互冲突的要求：它们必须快速而特异地聚集在一起以转移电子，但它们也必须在之后迅速分离以维持高ET周转率。因此，将蛋白质聚集在一起的任何力量都必须随后转换为反向。这怎么可能？这个开关是什么？

During photosynthesis and respiration, solar or chemical energy are used to transfer electrons along a chain of proteins to power up a proton battery. Some of these electron transfer (ET) proteins move freely, shuttling electrons back and forth between larger membrane integral proteins. The mystery is how the freely moving proteins find their way to their cognate partner, dock at the membrane surface, release their electron and then undock, all within a few microseconds. Somehow, these pairs of proteins balance conflicting requirements: they must come together quickly and specifically to transfer electrons, yet they must also separate rapidly afterwards to sustain high ET turnover. Therefore, whatever forces brought the proteins together must be subsequently switched into reverse. How is this possible? What is this switch?