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Structural and functional changes of PSI-LHCI supercomplexes of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells grown under high salt conditions

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Abstract

The effect of high salt concentration (100 mM NaCl) on the organization of photosystem I-light harvesting complex I supercomplexes (PSI-LHCI) of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii was studied. The electron transfer activity was reduced by 39% in isolated PSI-LHCI supercomplexes. The visible circular dichroism (CD) spectra associated with strongly coupled chlorophyll (Chl) dimers were reduced in intensity, indicating that pigment–pigment interactions were disrupted. This data is consistent with results from fluorescence streak camera spectroscopy, which suggest that red-shifted pigments in the PSI-LHCI antenna had been lost. Denaturing gel electrophoresis and immunoblot analysis reveals that levels of the PSI reaction center proteins PsaD, PsaE and PsaF were reduced due to salt stress. PsaE is almost completely absent under high salt conditions. It is known that the membrane-extrinsic subunits PsaD and E form the ferredoxin-docking site. Our results indicate that the PSI-LHCI supercomplex is damaged by reactive oxygen species at high salt concentration, with particular impact on the ferredoxin-docking site and the PSI-LHCI interface.

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Abbreviations

CD:

Circular dichroism

Chl:

Chlorophyll

DDM:

n-Dodecyl-β-maltoside

LHC:

Light harvesting complex

MALDI-TOF:

Matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry

PS:

Photosystem

SOD:

Superoxide dismutase

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Department of Biotechnology (BT/PR11277/GBD/27/152/2008), Department of Science and technology, India to RS and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. MCB-0417142. We thank Prof. Kevin Redding, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Arizona State University, USA for his kind gift of the antibodies (PsaE and F). We thank Dr. Su Lin for assistance with the fluorescence kinetics measurements at the Center for Bio-optical Nanotechnology at ASU.

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  1. Craig Jolley

    Present address: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, 59717, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 500046, India

    Rajagopal Subramanyam & Sreedhar Nellaepalli

  2. The Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, PO Box 874501, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA

    Rajagopal Subramanyam & Andrew N. Webber

  3. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287-1604, USA

    Rajagopal Subramanyam, Balakumar Thangaraj & Petra Fromme

  4. Department of Physics, The Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287-1504, USA

    Craig Jolley

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Correspondence to Rajagopal Subramanyam.

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Subramanyam, R., Jolley, C., Thangaraj, B. et al. Structural and functional changes of PSI-LHCI supercomplexes of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells grown under high salt conditions. Planta 231, 913–922 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-009-1097-x

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