Quantitative correlation of peripheral and intrinsic core polypeptides of photosystem II with photosynthetic electron-transport activity ofAcetabularia mediterranea in red and blue light

The high photosynthetic activity (O₂ production and CO₂ consumption) ofAcetabularia mediterranea Lamour. (=A. acetabulum (L.) Silva) characteristic of cells cultured in white light decreases slowly when cells are kept in continuous red light, and is less than 20% of the original activity after three weeks. Subsequent blue irradiation restores the original activity completely within 3–5 d. The polypeptide composition of the thylakoids from cells grown in either red or blue light and after transfer from red to blue light was analyzed mainly with regards to photosystem II (PSII). The P700-containing reaction-centre complex of photosystem I, CPI, showed only minor quantitative alterations as a consequence of the growth-light quality, which correlated well with the activity of photosystem I under these conditions. In PSII, no drastic changes occurred in the quantity of the reaction-centre components D1 (herbicide-binding polypeptide) and D2, as determined by immunoblots. Likewise, the proteins associated with the water-splitting apparatus did not change detectably in thylakoids from red- or blue-light-treated cells (the 16-kDa component could not be found inAcetabularia thylakoids). The level of the major light-harvesting complex was completely unaffected by the light quality. In contrast, the quantities of the chlorophyll a-protein complexes of the core antenna, CP43 and CP47 (and probably CP29), changed, with kinetics similar to those of total photosynthetic activity. We postulate that the function of the PSII antenna became increasingly impaired in the absence of blue light (i.e. in red light), while blue light had a restoring effect. The peripheral antenna, comprising the light-harvesting complexes, is probably functionally connected with the reaction-centre chlorophylls via the core antenna chlorophyll-protein complexes (CP43, CP47 and probably CP29). A deficiency of these complexes would lead to uncoupling of antenna and reaction centre in the majority of PSII complexes after long periods of red-light treatment.