In photosynthetic electron transport, large multiprotein complexes are connected by small diffusible electron carriers, the mobility of which is challenged by macromolecular crowding. For thylakoid membranes of higher plants, a long-standing question has been which of the two mobile electron carriers, plastoquinone or plastocyanin, mediates electron transport from stacked grana thylakoids where photosystem II (PSII) is localized to distant unstacked regions of the thylakoids that harbor PSI. Here, we confirm that plastocyanin is the long-range electron carrier by employing mutants with different grana diameters. Furthermore, our results explain why higher plants have a narrow range of grana diameters since a larger diffusion distance for plastocyanin would jeopardize the efficiency of electron transport. In the light of recent findings that the lumen of thylakoids, which forms the diffusion space of plastocyanin, undergoes dynamic swelling/shrinkage, this study demonstrates that plastocyanin diffusion is a crucial regulatory element of plant photosynthetic electron transport.
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Rewiring photosynthesis: a photosystem I-hydrogenase chimera that makes H 2 in vivo
Harnessing the power of photosynthesis to catalyze novel light-driven redox chemistry requires a way to intercept electron flow directly from the photosynthetic electron transport chain (PETC). As a proof of concept, an in vivo fusion of photosystem I (PSI) and algal hydrogenase was created by insertion of the HydA sequence into the PsaC subunit. The PSI and hydrogenase portions are co-assembled and active in vivo , effectively creating a new photosystem. Cells expressing only the PSI-hydrogenase chimera make hydrogen at high rates in a light-dependent fashion for several days. In these engineered cells, photosynthetic electron flow is directed away from CO 2 fixation and towards proton reduction, demonstrating the possibility of driving novel redox chemistries using electrons from water splitting and the photosynthetic electron transport chain.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1706960
- PAR ID:
- 10169112
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Energy & Environmental Science
- ISSN:
- 1754-5692
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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