Photosynthetic control of chloroplast gene expression

Thomas Pfannschmidt, Anders Nilsson and John F. Allen ()
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Thomas Pfannschmidt: Plant Cell Biology, Lund University
Anders Nilsson: Plant Cell Biology, Lund University
John F. Allen: Plant Cell Biology, Lund University

Nature, 1999, vol. 397, issue 6720, 625-628

Abstract: Abstract Redox chemistry—the transfer of electrons or hydrogen atoms—is central to energy conversion in respiration and photosynthesis. In photosynthesis in chloroplasts, two separate, light-driven reactions, termed photosystem I and photosystem II, are connected in series by a chain of electron carriers1,2,3. The redox state of one connecting electron carrier, plastoquinone, governs the distribution of absorbed light energy between photosystems I and II by controlling the phosphorylation of a mobile, light-harvesting, pigment–protein complex4,5. Here we show that the redox state of plastoquinone also controls the rate of transcription of genes encoding reaction-centre apoproteins of photosystem I and photosystem II. As a result of this control, the stoichiometry between the two photosystems changes in a way that counteracts the inefficiency produced when either photosystem limits the rate of the other. In eukaryotes, these reaction-centre proteins are encoded universally within the chloroplast. Photosynthetic control of chloroplast gene expression indicates an evolutionary explanation for this rule: the redox signal-transduction pathway can be short, the response rapid, and the control direct.

Date: 1999
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DOI: 10.1038/17624

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