Morphological and Photosynthetic Properties of Digitonin-treated Chloroplast Membranes from the Wild-type and ac-5 Strains of Chlamydomonas reinhardi

Chloroplast membranes of wild-type Chlamydomonas reinhardi, treated with digitonin, yield photosystem II-rich and photosystem I-rich fractions; this fractionation is accompanied by a separation of stacked (grana) lamella from unstacked (stroma) lamellae. Poor fractionation of the photosystems occurs when the treated chloroplast membranes derive from the ac-5 strain grown mixotrophically, whereas good fractionation occurs with ac-5 cells grown phototrophically; the mixotrophic cells possess only unstacked membranes, whereas the phototrophic cells possess stacked membranes. We concluded that digitonin fractionation is dependent on the stacked membrane configuration.