Consecutive binding of chlorophylls a and b during the assembly in vitro of light-harvesting chlorophyll-a/b protein (LHCIIb)

The apoprotein of the major light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b complex (LHCIIb) is post-translationally imported into the chloroplast, where membrane insertion, protein folding, and pigment binding take place. The sequence and molecular mechanism of the latter steps is largely unknown. The complex spontaneously self-organises in vitro to form structurally authentic LHCIIb upon reconstituting the unfolded recombinant protein with the pigments chlorophyll a, b, and carotenoids in detergent micelles. Former measurements of LHCIIb assembly had revealed two apparent kinetic phases, a faster one (tau1) in the range of 10 s to 1 min, and a slower one (tau2) in the range of several min. To unravel the sequence of events we analysed the binding of chlorophylls into the complex by using time-resolved fluorescence measurements of resonance energy transfer from chlorophylls to an acceptor dye attached to the apoprotein. Chlorophyll a, offered in the absence of chlorophyll b, bound with the faster kinetics (tau1) exclusively whereas chlorophyll b, in the absence of chlorophyll a, bound predominantly with the slower kinetics (tau2). In double-jump experiments, LHCIIb assembly could be dissected into a faster chlorophyll a and a subsequent, predominantly slower chlorophyll b-binding step. The assignment of the faster and the slower kinetic phase to predominantly chlorophyll a and exclusively chlorophyll b binding, respectively, was verified by analysing the assembly kinetics with a circular dichroism signal in the visible domain presumably reflecting the establishment of pigment-pigment interactions. We propose that slow chlorophyll binding is confined to the exclusively chlorophyll b binding sites whereas faster binding occurs to the chlorophyll a binding sites. The latter sites can bind both chlorophylls a and b but in a reversible fashion as long as the complex is not stabilised by proper occupation of the chlorophyll b sites. The resulting two-step model of LHCIIb assembly is able to reconcile the highly specific binding sites containing either chlorophyll a or b, as seen in the recent crystal structures of LHCIIb, with the observation of promiscuous binding sites able to bind both chlorophyll a and b in numerous reconstitution analyses of LHCIIb assembly.