A general approach for calculating spectral and optical properties of pigment-protein complexes of known atomic structure is presented. The method, that combines molecular dynamics simulations, quantum chemistry calculations, and statistical mechanical modeling, is demonstrated by calculating the absorption and circular dichroism spectra of the B800-B850 bacteriochlorophylls of the LH2 antenna complex from Rs. molischianum at room temperature. The calculated spectra are found to be in good agreement with the available experimental results. The calculations reveal that the broadening of the B800 band is mainly caused by the interactions with the polar protein environment, while the broadening of the B850 band is due to the excitonic interactions. Since it contains no fitting parameters, in principle, the proposed method can be used to predict optical spectra of arbitrary pigment-protein complexes of known structure.

The ovarian hormone privation causes functional and hormonal disorders, as sexual dysfunction, loss of libido, increase of osteoporosis risk and heart disease, lioprotein levels change and ponderal gain. Osteoporosis is a systemic skeletal disease characterized by an disorder between resorption and bone formation with a consequent increase in bone fragility. The objective of the present investigation was to describe the experimental ovariectomy (OVT) effects on the bone metabolism and on the ponderal gain of the adults wistar rats. Adult rats were under the OVT procedure or sham operated. After 30 days, blood was collectded for the quantitative serum estrogen and after 60 days the animals were sacrified for the serum and bone analysis. The dietary consumption and the weight increase were evaluated twice and once a week respectively. The OVT rats had statistically higher averages (p > 0,05) for the dietary consumption, weight gain and alkaline phosphatase activity in the serum and lower (p < 0,05) for the serum estrogen concentration, calcium content, radiodensity and bone proportional limit comparing to the sham-operated rats. Besides the quantitative analysis, the OVT rats had femurs with theirs surface containing deep resorption gaps, confirming that the ovariectomy rats are a great osteoporosis study model on post menopause women.