Abstract
We have shown that the green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum can be grown in batch culture supplemented with potentially toxic fatty alcohols without a major effect on the growth rate if the concentration of the alcohols is kept low either by programmed addition or by adding the alcohol as an inclusion complex with β-cyclodextrin. HPLC and GC analysis of pigment extracts from the supplemented cells showed that the fatty alcohols were incorporated into bacteriochlorophyll c as the esterifying alcohol. It was possible to change up to 43% of the naturally occurring farnesyl ester of bacteriochlorophyll c with the added alcohol. This change in the homolog composition had no effect on the spectral properties of the cells when farnesol was partially replaced by stearol, phytol or geranylgeraniol. However, with dodecanol we obtained a blue-shift of 6 nm of the Qy band of the bacteriochlorophyll c and a concomitant change in the fluorescence emission was observed. The possible significance of these findings is discussed in the light of current ideas about bacteriochlorophyll organization in the chlorosomes.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- β-CD:
-
β-cyclodextrin
- BChl:
-
bacteriochlorophyll
- BChl c H :
-
bacteriochlorophyllide c
- [E,M] BChl c F :
-
8-ethyl, 12-methyl, farnesyl BChl c
- [E,E] BChl c F :
-
8-ethyl, 12-ethyl, farnesyl BChl c
- [P,E] BChl c F :
-
8-propyl, 12-ethyl, farnesyl BChl c
- [I,E] BChl c F :
-
8-isobutyl, 12-ethyl, farnesyl BChl c
- Car:
-
carotenoids
References
Amesz J (1991) Green photosynthetic bacteria and heliobacteria. In: Shively JM and Barton LL (eds) Variations in Autotrophic Life, pp 99–119. Academic Press, New York
Blankenship RE, Olson JM and Miller M (1995) Antenna complexes from green bacteria. In: Blankenship RE, Madigan MT and Bauer CE (eds) Anoxygenic Photosynthetic Bacteria, pp 399–435. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht
Bobe FW, Pfennig N, Swanson KL and Smith KM (1990) Red shift of absorption maxima in Chlorobiineae through enzymatic methylation of their antenna bacteriochlorophyll. Biochemistry 29: 4340–4348
Borrego CM and Garcia-Gil LJ (1994) Separation of bacteriochlorophyll homologues from green photosynthetic sulfur bacteria by reversed-phase HPLC. Photosynth Res 41: 157–164
Borrego CM and Garcia-Gil LJ (1995) Rearrangement of light harvesting bacteriochlorophyll homologues as a response of green sulfur bacteria to low light intensities. Photosynth Res 45: 21–30
Caple MB, Chow H and Strouse CE (1978) Photosynthetic pigments of green sulfur bacteria. J Biol Chem 253: 6730–6737
Chiefari J, Griebenow K, Fages F, Griebenow N, Balaban TS, Holzwarth AR and Schaffner K (1995) Models for the pigment organization in the chlorosomes of photosynthetic bacteria: Diastereoselective control of in-vitro bacteriochlorophyll c H aggregation. J Phys Chem 99: 1357–1365
Fages F, Griebenow N, Griebenow K, Holzwarth AR and Schaffner K (1990) Characterization of light-harvesting pigments of Chloroflexus aurantiacus. Two new chlorophylls: Oleyl (octadec-9-enyl) and cetyl (hexadecanyl) bacteriochlorophyllides-c. J Chem Soc Perkin Trans 1: 2791–2797
Frigaard N-U, Larsen KL and Cox RP (1996) Spectrochromatography of photosynthetic pigments as a fingerprinting technique for microbial phototrophs. FEMS Microbiol Ecol (in press)
Holzwarth AR and Schaffner K (1994) On the structure of bacteriochlorophyll molecular aggregates in the chlorosome of green bacteria. A molecular modeling study. Photosynth Res 41: 225–233
Huster MS and Smith KM (1990) Biosynthetic studies of substituent homologation in bacteriochlorophyll c and d. Biochemistry 29: 4348–4355
Larsen KL, Cox RP and Miller M (1990) Effects of illumination intensity on bacteriochlorophyll c homolog distribution in Chloroflexus aurantiacus grown under controlled conditions. Photosynth Res 41: 151–156
Larsen KL, Miller M and Cox RP (1995) Incorporation of exogenous long-chain alcohols into bacteriochlorophyll c homologs by Chloroflexus aurantiacus. Arch Microbiol 163: 119–123
Matsuura K, Hirota M, Shimada K and Mimuro M (1993) Spectral forms and orientation of bacteriochlorophylls c and a in chlorosomes of the green photosynthetic bacterium Chloroflexus aurantiacus. Photochem Photobiol 57: 92–97
Miller M, Cox RP and Gillbro T (1991) Energy transfer kinetics in chlorosomes from Chloroflexus aurantiacus: Studies using picosecond absorbance spectroscopy. Biochim Biophys Acta 1057: 187–194
Nozawa T, Suzuki M, Ohtomo K, Morishita Y, Konami H and Madigan TM (1991) Aggregation structure of bacteriochlorophyll c in chlorosomes from Chlorobium tepidum. Chem Lett: 1763–1766
Nozawa T, Ohtomo K, Suzuki M, Morishita Y and Madigan MT (1993) Structures and organization of bacteriochlorophyll c's in chlorosomes from a new thermophilic bacterium Chlorobium tepidum. Bull Chem Soc Jpn 66: 231–237
Nozawa T, Ohtomo K, Suzuki M, Nakagawa H, Shikama Y, Konami H and Wang Z-Y (1994) Structures of chlorosomes and aggregated BChl c in Chlorobium tepidum from solid state high resolution CP/MAS 13C NMR. Photosynth Res 41: 211–223
Olsen GJ, Woese CR and Overbeek R (1994). The winds of (evolutionary) change: Breathing new life into microbiology. J Bacteriol 176: 1–6
Otte SCM, van der Meent EJ, van Veelen PA, Pundsnes AS and Amesz J (1993) Identification of the major chlorosomal bacteriochlorophylls of the green sulfur bacteria Chlorobium vibrioforme and Chlorobium phaeovibrioides; their function in lateral energy transfer. Photosynth Res 35: 159–169
Risch N, Brockmann H and Gloe A (1979). Strukturaufklarung von neuartigen bacteriochlorophyllen aus Chloroflexus aurantiacus. Liebigs Ann Chem: 408–418
Sato H, Uehara K, Ishii T and Ozaki Y (1995) FT-IR and nearinfrared FT-Raman study of aggregation of bacteriochlorophyll c in solutions: Evidence for involvement of the ester group in the aggregation. Biochemistry 34: 7854–7860
Savitsky A and Golay MJE (1964) Smoothing and differentiation of data by simplified least-squares procedures. Anal Chem 36: 1627–1639
Scheer H (1991) Structure and occurrence of chlorophylls. In: Scheer H (ed) Chlorophylls, pp 3–30. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Smith KM, Craig GW, Kehres LA and Pfennig N (1983) Reversedphase high-performance liquid chromatography and structual assignment of the bacteriochlorophylls-c. J Chromat 281: 209–223
Staehelin LA, Golecki JR, Fuller RC and Drews G (1978) Visualization of the supramolecular architecture of chlorosomes (Chlorobium-type vesicles) in freeze fractured cells of Chloroflexus aurantiacus. Arch Mikrobiol 119: 269–277
Staehelin LA, Golecki JR, Fuller RC and Drews G (1980) Supramolecular organization of the chlorosomes (Chlorobium vesicles) and of their membrane attachment sites in Chlorobium limicola. Biochim Biophys Acta 589: 30–45
Szente L, Szejtli J, Szeman J and Kato L (1993) Fatty acid-cyclodextrin complexes: Properties and applications. J Inclus Phenom Mol Recog Chem 16: 335–365
Uehara K, Mimuro M, Ozaki Y and Olson JM (1994) The formation and characterization of the in-vitro polymeric aggregates of bacteriochlorophyll c homologs from Chlorobium limicola in aqueous suspension in the presence of monogalactosyl diglyceride. Photosynth Res 41: 235–243
Wahlund TM, Woese CR, Castenholz RW and Madigan MT (1991) A thermophilic green sulfur bacterium from New Zealand hot springs, Chlorobium tepidum sp.nov. Arch Microbiol 156: 81–90
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Steensgaard, D.B., Cox, R.P. & Miller, M. Manipulation of the bacteriochlorophyll c homolog distribution in the green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum . Photosynth Res 48, 385–393 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00029471
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00029471