Chlorophyll b can serve as the major pigment in functional photosystem II complexes of cyanobacteria.

ABSTRACT: An Arabidopsis thaliana chlorophyll(ide) a oxygenase gene (cao), which is responsible for chlorophyll b synthesis from chlorophyll a, was introduced and expressed in a photosystem I-less strain of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. In this strain, most chlorophyll is associated with the photosystem II complex. In line with observations by Satoh et al. [Satoh, S., Ikeuchi, M., Mimuro, M. & Tanaka, A. (2001) J. Biol. Chem. 276, 4293-4297], chlorophyll b was made but accounted for less than 10% of total chlorophyll. However, when lhcb encoding light-harvesting complex (LHC)II from pea was present in the same strain (lhcb(+)/cao(+)), chlorophyll b accumulated in the cell to levels exceeding those of chlorophyll a, although LHCII did not accumulate. In the lhcb(+)/cao(+) strain, the

SUBMITTER: Xu H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC61186 | biostudies-literature | 2001 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature