Acclimation of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to extremely strong light.

ABSTRACT: Most photosynthetic organisms are sensitive to very high light, although acclimation mechanisms enable them to deal with exposure to strong light up to a point. Here we show that cultures of wild-type Chlamydomonas reinhardtii strain cc124, when exposed to photosynthetic photon flux density 3000 μmol m^-2 s^-1 for a couple of days, are able to suddenly attain the ability to grow and thrive. We compared the phenotypes of control cells and cells acclimated to this extreme light (EL). The results suggest that genetic or epigenetic variation, developing during maintenance of the population in moderate light, contributes to the acclimation capability. EL acclimation was associated with a high carotenoid-to-chlorophyll ratio and slowed down PSII charge recombination reactions

SUBMITTER: Virtanen O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7728646 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature