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Dimeric carotenoid interaction in the light-harvesting antenna of purple phototrophic bacteria.

ABSTRACT: The carotenoid content of intracytoplasmic membrane vesicles isolated from purple phototrophic bacteria was reduced to a variable extent by mild extraction with light petroleum. Using preparations obtained from Rhodobacter capsulatus strains that contained the Light Harvesting System I (LHI) complex as the only major photosynthetic holochrome, it was shown that the visible circular dichroism of the carotenoids increased with the square of the membrane carotenoid content, as expected from being caused by dimeric exciton interaction. No chirality resulting from twists of the individual planar chromophore was detected. Therefore the contribution to carotenoid optical activity of non-degenerate interactions with bacteriochlorophyll or the apoprotein does not appear to be significant. The broadening of the absorption band of the bound pigment, caused by the splitting of the monomer transition, was demonstrated in membrane vesicles of both Rb, capsulatus and Rhodospirillum rubrum as a decrease of the fine structure of the band. Furthermore, the dimeric organization of the carotenoid pigments in the bacterial LHI complex accounted for the observed quantitative relationship between the fine structure of the band and the carotenoid content of the membrane.

SUBMITTER: Zurdo J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1149992 | biostudies-other | 1991 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Project description:Peripheral light harvesting (LH) antenna complexes have been studied extensively in the purple nonsulfur bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris because it produces different types of LH complexes under high light intensities (LH2 complex) and low light intensities (LH3 and LH4 complex). The ability of R. palustris to alter its peripheral LH complexes in response to changes in light intensity is attributed to the multiple operons that encode the a and b peptides that make up these complexes, whose expression is affected by light intensity, light quality, and oxygen tension. However, low resolution structures, amino acid similarities between the complexes, and a lack of transcriptional analysis made it difficult to determine the LH complexes composition and functions under different light intensities. It was also unclear how much diversity of the R. palustris LH complexes exists in nature.Results: To gain insight into the composition of the LH complexes, their function under high light intensities and low light intensities, and their prevalence in the environment we undertook an integrative genomics approach using 15 closely related R. palustris strains isolated from the environment and 5 R. palustris ecotypes whose genomes have been sequenced. We sequenced the genomes for the 15 closely related strains and using RNA-seq carried out transcriptomic analysis on all 20 strains grown under high light intensity and low light intensity. We were able to determine that even closely related R. palustris strains had differences in their pucBA gene content and expression, even under the same growth conditions. We also found that the LH2 complex could compensate for the lack of an LH4 complex under LL intensities but not under extremely LL intensities. Conclusions: This is the first time an integrative genomics approach has been used to study light harvesting in the environment. The variation observed in LH gene composition and expression in environmental isolates of R. palustris likely reflects how these strains have adapted to specific light conditions in the environment. We have also shown that there is redundancy between some of the LH complexes under certain light intensities, which may partially explain why multiple operons encoding LH complexes have evolved and been maintained in R. palustris.

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Dimeric carotenoid interaction in the light-harvesting antenna of purple phototrophic bacteria.

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