Surface potential and reaction of membrane-bound electron transfer components. I. Reaction of P-700 in sonicated chloroplasts with redox reagents

Salt- or pH-induced change of the rate of reduction of the phtooxidized membrane bound electron transfer components, P-700, by ionic and nonionic reductants added in the outer medium was studied in sonicated chloroplasts.

The rate with the negatively charged reductants increased with the increase of salt concentration at a neutral pH or with the decrease of medium pH. Salts of divalent cations were much more effective than those of monovalent cations. A trivalent cation was even more effective. The rate with a nonionic reductant was little affected by salts.

The change of the reduction rate was analyzed using the Gouy-Chapman theory, which explains the change of reduction rate by the changes of activities of ionic reductants at the charged membrane surface where the reaction takes place. This analysis gave more useful parameters and explained more satisfactorily the case with high-valence cation salts than the Brönsted type analysis. The values for the surface charge density and the surface potential of the membrane surface in the vicinity of P-700 estimated from the analysis were lower than those estimated for the surface in the vicinity of Photosystem II primary acceptor, suggesting the heterogeneity of the thylakoid surface.

The salt-induced surface potential change was shown to affect the activation energy of the reaction between P-700 and the ionic reagent.