Protein-chromophore interaction and its influence on the photophysics of chromophore: insights from solvatochromic analysis

Artificial photosynthesis inspired by nature merits its place in the holy grail of chemistry. The funneling of energy from the antenna complexes (LHII) to the reaction center through LHI has been proposed by Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET). The assemblies of this multichromophoric system in the protein scaffold improves the energy transfer efficiency in the manifold, like modulating the spatial and energy landscape of this chromophore system. A novel approach to artificial photosynthesis is to use antennas comprising different classes of organic chromophores, which can undergo photoinduced energy, electron transfers, and isomerization assembled in the synthetic α-helical protein barrels (α-HPBs)