In this two part set the Editor has brought together contributions from numerous leading scientific experts providing a compendium of information offering the most up-to-date understanding of the primary processes of photosynthesis.
The contributors have completely summarised the current knowledge on the mechanisms of light harvesting, charge separation, electron transport, water cleavage and ATP synthesis in addition to providing high quality structure information at atomic resolution for a range of reaction centres and antenna complexes.
Plants and sunshine
Primary processes of photosynthesis: Principles and apparatus
Gernot Renger (Ed)
Cambridge, UK: RSC Publishing 2008, 1088 pages, (two volumes), (HB) ISBN 978-0-85404-364-4
Reviewed by Bob Brown
The editor's preface to this pair of volumes, which concentrate on the primary processes in photosynthesis, asks the very pertinent question as to why, given that there is a goodly number of photosynthesis books already published, another pair are appropriate? The answer given is '.the enormous progress achieved in molecular biology and x-ray diffraction crystallography of membrane proteins during the last two decades, which has enabled, in combination with developments of sophisticated spectroscopic methods of very high time resolution, much deeper insight into the mechanisms and structure of the [photosynthetic] apparatus.' and that '.significant advances in the methodology of theory (quantum chemistry, molecular mechanics) offer a new basis for a be