Structure of the far-red light utilizing photosystem I of Acaryochloris marina

Tasuku Hamaguchi,Shigeru Itoh,Koji Yonekura,Kyoko Shinzawa-Itoh,Kentaro Ifuku,Kou Maeda,Yasuhiro Kashino,Natsuko Inoue-Kashino,Keisuke Kawakami,Eiki Yamashita

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-22502-8

Abstract

Acaryochloris marina is one of the cyanobacterial species that can use far-red light to drive photochemical reactions for oxygenic photosynthesis. Here, we report the structure of A. marina photosystem I (PSI) reaction center, determined by cryo-electron microscopy at 2.58 Å resolution. The structure reveals an arrangement of electron carriers and light-harvesting pigments distinct from other type I reaction centers. The paired chlorophyll, or special pair (also referred to as P740 in this case), is a dimer of chlorophyll d and its epimer chlorophyll d′. The primary electron acceptor is pheophytin a, a metal-less chlorin. We show the architecture of this PSI reaction center is composed of 11 subunits and we identify key components that help explain how the low energy yield from far-red light is efficiently utilized for driving oxygenic photosynthesis.

Highlights

Acaryochloris marina is one of the cyanobacterial species that can use far-red light to drive photochemical reactions for oxygenic photosynthesis
The photosystem I (PSI) trimer complex was isolated from A. marina
The model of the PSI trimer was refined to give a correlation coefficient and Q-score, which are indices for validating the correctness of a model, of 0.80 and 0.65, respectively (Supplementary Table 4). These index values can be considered reasonable at 2.58 Å resolution (Supplementary Fig. 11)

Summary

Introduction

Acaryochloris marina is one of the cyanobacterial species that can use far-red light to drive photochemical reactions for oxygenic photosynthesis. The PSI of A. marina with Chl d in its electron transfer chain for utilizing low-energy light directly for the photochemistry is unique. The A. marina PSI monomer contains 11 subunits (PsaA, PsaB, PsaC, PsaD, PsaE, PsaF, PsaJ, PsaK, PsaL, PsaM, and Psa27), all of which could be assigned to the cryo-EM density map

Results

Conclusion