Figure 6.

Lipids approaching the central crossing helices of trimeric and monomeric LHCII containing different carotenoids, showing more extensive lipid-protein contacts for monomeric wt and npq2 LHCII. (A) CG simulation setup of an npq2 LHCII monomer (gray surface) embedded in plant thylakoid membrane. The colors of the lipid headgroups are: PG, orchid; MGDG, red; DGDG, blue; SQDG, yellow. Chls are colored green, carotenoids orange, and water below the membrane is shown as transparent blue surface. (B) Selected snapshots of an MGDG lipid approaching and binding to helices a and b in the bilayer middle. (C) Selected snapshot highlighting the interaction between Chl602 and the headgroup of an MGDG lipid, which dived into the bilayer middle. (D) Number of contacts between the protein backbone of the middle part of transmembrane helices a and b and lipid beads with a distance ≤0.7 nm. (E) Minimum distance between the protein backbone and the lipids for these contacts.