Journal
PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Volume 158, Issue 4, Pages 1600-1609Publisher
AMER SOC PLANT BIOLOGISTS
DOI: 10.1104/pp.111.192849
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Funding
- Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC)
- U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences [DE-SC 0001035]
- U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration [DE-AC04-94AL85000]
- Energy Frontier Research Center
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Cyanobacteria are oxygenic photosynthetic prokaryotes that are the progenitors of the chloroplasts of algae and plants. These organisms harvest light using large membrane-extrinsic phycobilisome antenna in addition to membrane-bound chlorophyll-containing proteins. Similar to eukaryotic photosynthetic organisms, cyanobacteria possess thylakoid membranes that house photosystem (PS) I and PSII, which drive the oxidation of water and the reduction of NADP(+), respectively. While thylakoid morphology has been studied in some strains of cyanobacteria, the global distribution of PSI and PSII within the thylakoid membrane and the corresponding location of the light-harvesting phycobilisomes are not known in detail, and such information is required to understand the functioning of cyanobacterial photosynthesis on a larger scale. Here, we have addressed this question using a combination of electron microscopy and hyperspectral confocal fluorescence microscopy in wild-type Synechocystis species PCC 6803 and a series of mutants in which phycobilisomes are progressively truncated. We show that as the phycobilisome antenna is diminished, large-scale changes in thylakoid morphology are observed, accompanied by increased physical segregation of the two photosystems. Finally, we quantified the emission intensities originating from the two photosystems in vivo on a per cell basis to show that the PSI: PSII ratio is progressively decreased in the mutants. This results from both an increase in the amount of photosystem II and a decrease in the photosystem I concentration. We propose that these changes are an adaptive strategy that allows cells to balance the light absorption capabilities of photosystems I and II under light-limiting conditions.
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