Geoffrey Hind
Senior Biochemist

Biology Department, Bldg. 463
Brookhaven National Laboratory
P.O. Box 5000
Upton, NY 11973-5000

tel: (631) 344-3400
fax: (631) 344-3407
hind@bnl.gov
 

Research Interests:

Molecular mechanisms protect higher plants and algae against cellular damage during stress arising from excessive light collection by the photosynthetic antenna. Earlier studies showed that reversible phosphorylations of the light-harvesting protein complex of photosystem II (LHC-II) and the photosystem II reaction centers are driven by two distinct protein kinases, and regulate excitation energy distribution in low to moderate light intensity regimes. At higher intensities typical of the photoinhibition regime, LHC-II in thylakoid membranes and in detergent-isolated, two-dimensional crystals undergoes profound reorganization evidenced by loss of chirality. Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) analysis showed that hexagonal crystalline arrays of LHC-II are disrupted into polydisperse particles under these conditions, consistent with a proposed trimer-monomer transition in LHC-II. STEM also revealed a novel microcrystalline form of lipid-depleted LHC-II which has strong chirality but is structurally resistant to intense light. Its unit cell is rhombic, and the two-dimensional crystals have uniquely high mean mass per unit area. Current experiments explore the organization of trimers in these microcrystals.

References:
Dunn J.J., McCorkle S.R., Praissman L.A., Hind G., van der Lelie D., Bahou W.F., Gnatenko D.V. and Krause M.K.
Genomic Signature Tags (GSTs): A system for profiling genomic DNA.
Genome Research 12: 1756-65 (2002).   PubMed   Full Text
Race H.L., Forsberg J., Hind G. and Allen J.F.
Photosystem II-associated protein kinase phosphorylates a novel 6.3 kDa protein which subsequently dissociates from photosystem II core complexes.
In: Photosynthesis: Mechanisms and Effects, Proceedings of XIth International Congress on Photosynthesis (G. Garab, edt.), Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 3: 1859-1863 (1998).
Race H.L. and Hind G.
Minor constituents of photosystem II core complexes: Possible regulators of photosystem II protein kinase.
Arch Biochem Biophys. 345: 355-357 (1997).   PubMed
Race H.L. and Hind G.
A protein kinase in the core of photosystem II.
Biochemistry 35, 13006-13010 (1996).   PubMed   Full Text
See also article in the Brookhaven Bulletin (1996: Vol.50 No.46).
Hind G., Marshak D.R. and Coughlan S.J.
Spinach thylakoid polyphenol oxidase: cloning, characterization, and relation to a putative protein kinase.
Biochemistry 34, 8157-8164 (1995).   PubMed
France L.L., Kieleczawa J., Dunn J.J., Luft B.J., Hind G., and Sutherland J.C.
Evidence of an alpha-helical epitope on outer surface protein A from the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi: an application of steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence quenching techniques.
Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1202: 287-296 (1993).   PubMed
Kieleczawa J., Coughlan S.J. and Hind G.
Isolation and characterization of an alkaline phosphatase from pea thylakoids.
Plant Physiol. 99: 1029-1036 (1992).
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