Team:ECUST/Model
Overview
The purpose of this modeling is to predict the improvement of hydrogen production of Rhodobacter sphaeroids 2.4.1 after modifications of photobioreactor and Rhodobacter sphaeroids 2.4.1.
Our modelling is divided into three parts: Model of Reactor, Föster theory, Hydrogen production. it includes the whole process from photon absorption in photobioreactor to hydrogen production from Rhodobacter spaeroids 2.4.1.
Part One: Model of Reactor
In this part we will predict how much photons fluorescent proteins in the photobioreactor can absorb .
Part Two: Föster theory
This section proves that energy of photons absorbed by fluorescent proteins can be transmitted to RC complex by Föster resonance energy transfer. By building a fusion protein model of H subunit in RC complex and fluorescent protein, we can predict the distance between the donor and the receptor and calculate the energy transfer efficiency by Föster theory.
Part Three: Hydrogen production
This part mainly introduces the pathway of hydrogen production and calculates how much hydrogen will be produced.
Discussion
We solved the following questions through modeling:
1.We simulated increase of the photons absorbed by internal cells with light-emitting agitator.
2.We proved the feasibility of FRET by homology modeling as well as calculating its efficiency.
3.We calculated the theoretical increase in the amount of hydrogen production, give us greater confidence to complete the experiment.
Firstly, in model of reactor , based on the simulated light intensity distribution, we figured out that the number of photons absorbed by fluorescent protein per second was 5.2×10 19 and the energy of these photons was 20.1 joule. What’s more, in Förster theory , after predicting the distance(67.9 Å) between energy donor(fluorescent protein) and energy acceptor(bacteriochlorophyll dimer in reaction center), we figured out that the efficiency of energy transfer from the fluorescent protein to reaction was 28.3%. Finally, in hydrogen production , we further studied the charge separation, the electron transport chains and ATP synthesis of Rhodobacter sphaeroides as well as their relationship with hydrogen production. The theoretical increase in the amount of hydrogen production can be calculated as 0.12ml/s at last.
