Abstract
Photosynthetic oxidation of water and production of oxygen by photosystem II (PSII) in thylakoid membranes of plant chloroplasts is highly affected by changes in light intensities. To minimize damage imposed by excessive sunlight and sustain the photosynthetic activity PSII, organized in supercomplexes with its light harvesting antenna, undergoes conformational changes, disassembly and repair via not clearly understood mechanisms. We characterized the phosphoproteome of the thylakoid membranes from Arabidopsis thaliana wild type, stn7, stn8 and stn7stn8 mutant plants exposed to high light. The high light treatment of the wild type and stn8 caused specific increase in phosphorylation of Lhcb4.1 and Lhcb4.2 isoforms of the PSII linker protein CP29 at five different threonine residues. Phosphorylation of CP29 at four of these residues was not found in stn7 and stn7stn8 plants lacking the STN7 protein kinase. Blue native gel electrophoresis followed by immunological and mass spectrometric analyses of the membrane protein complexes revealed that the high light treatment of the wild type caused redistribution of CP29 from PSII supercomplexes to PSII dimers and monomers. A similar high-light-induced disassembly of the PSII supercomplexes occurred in stn8, but not in stn7 and stn7stn8. Transfer of the high-light-treated wild type plants to normal light relocated CP29 back to PSII supercomplexes. We postulate that disassembly of PSII supercomplexes in plants exposed to high light involves STN7-kinase-dependent phosphorylation of the linker protein CP29. Disruption of this adaptive mechanism can explain dramatically retarded growth of the stn7 and stn7stn8 mutants under fluctuating normal/high light conditions, as previously reported.
Highlights
The light energy utilization in plant photosynthesis is regulated in response to ever changing environmental light intensities
Phosphoproteome of thylakoid membranes in Arabidopsis exposed to high light To characterize the phosphoproteome of thylakoid membranes in leaves of Arabidopsis plants exposed to high light we used mass spectrometric approach [30]
Analysis of the phosphoproteome in the thylakoid membranes from Arabidopsis wild type, stn7, stn8 and stn7stn8 plants exposed to high light revealed specific STN7-dependent multiple phos
Summary
The light energy utilization in plant photosynthesis is regulated in response to ever changing environmental light intensities This proceeds in photosynthetic membranes, called thylakoids, which are densely folded inside chloroplasts and heavily packed with protein-pigment complexes [1,2,3]. PSII is organized into large supercomplexes with variable amounts of peripheral light harvesting complexes (LHCII) [5] consisting of lhcb, lhcb and lhcb gene products [6]. The excessive light causes photoinactivation of oxygen-evolving PSII and significant decrease in the photosynthetic efficiency [13] To deal with this problem the excess energy is released as a heat in the process known as non-photochemical quenching, which involves reorganization and redistribution of PSII and its antenna complexes within the membranes [14,15]. The high light causes damage to the PSII protein pigment complex, in particular to the D1 reaction centre protein, which requires stepwise disassembly of PSII and its repair to sustain the photosynthetic function [13]
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