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Properties of Photosystem II lacking the PsbJ subunit

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Abstract

Photosystem II (PSII), the oxygen-evolving enzyme, consists of 17 trans-membrane and 3 extrinsic membrane proteins. Other subunits bind to PSII during assembly, like Psb27, Psb28, and Tsl0063. The presence of Psb27 has been proposed (Zabret et al. in Nat Plants 7:524–538, 2021; Huang et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 118:e2018053118, 2021; Xiao et al. in Nat Plants 7:1132–1142, 2021) to prevent the binding of PsbJ, a single transmembrane α-helix close to the quinone QB binding site. Consequently, a PSII rid of Psb27, Psb28, and Tsl0034 prior to the binding of PsbJ would logically correspond to an assembly intermediate. The present work describes experiments aiming at further characterizing such a ∆PsbJ–PSII, purified from the thermophilic Thermosynechococcus elongatus, by means of MALDI-TOF spectroscopy, thermoluminescence, EPR spectroscopy, and UV–visible time-resolved spectroscopy. In the purified ∆PsbJ–PSII, an active Mn4CaO5 cluster is present in 60–70% of the centers. In these centers, although the forward electron transfer seems not affected, the Em of the QB/QB couple increases by ≥ 120 mV , thus disfavoring the electron coming back on QA. The increase of the energy gap between QA/QA and QB/QB could contribute in a protection against the charge recombination between the donor side and QB, identified at the origin of photoinhibition under low light (Keren et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 94:1579–1584, 1997), and possibly during the slow photoactivation process.

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Abbreviations

Chl:

Chlorophyll

ChlD1/ChlD2 :

Accessory Chl’s on the D1 or D2 side, respectively

DCMU:

3-(3,4-Dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea

PSII:

Photosystem II

MES:

2–(N–Morpholino) ethanesulfonic acid

P680 :

Primary electron donor

PD1 and PD2 :

Chl monomer of P680 on the D1 or D2 side, respectively, PheD1 and PheD2, pheophytin on the D1 or D2 side, respectively

Q A :

Primary quinone acceptor

Q B :

Secondary quinone acceptor

TyrD :

Redox active tyrosine 160 of D2

TyrZ :

Redox active tyrosine 161 of D1

TL:

Thermoluminescence

WT*3:

T. elongatus Mutant strain containing only the psbA3 gene and a His6-tag on the C-terminus of CP43

EPR:

Electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy

MALDI-TOF:

Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight

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Acknowledgements

This work has been in part supported by (i) the French Infrastructure for Integrated Structural Biology (FRISBI) ANR-10-INBS-05, (ii) the Labex Dynamo (ANR-11-LABX-0011-01), (iii) EQUIPEX (CACSICE ANR-11-EQPX-0008), notably through funding of the Proteomic Platform of IBPC (PPI). MS was supported by the JSPS-KAKENHI Grant in Scientific Research on Innovative Areas JP17H06435 and a JSPS-KAKENHI Grant 21H02447.

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Correspondence to Alain Boussac or Miwa Sugiura.

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Boussac, A., Sellés, J., Hamon, M. et al. Properties of Photosystem II lacking the PsbJ subunit. Photosynth Res 152, 347–361 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-021-00880-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-021-00880-w

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