Editor's Summary

22 November 2007

Plants feel the heat

Plants need sunlight if they are to grow, but must also protect themselves from severe damage, such as bleaching, when the light is too bright. To do this the light-harvesting antennae in the chloroplasts rapidly switch into a photoprotected quenched state in the presence of excess light. Potentially harmful absorbed energy is then lost as heat. The mechanism of this energy dissipation process has been studied using resonance Raman spectroscopy in intact chloroplast membranes and whole leaves. LHCII, the main light-harvesting complex of green plants, is shown to switch between conformational states under different environmental conditions. The properties of the various forms of LHCII dictate energy flow, controlling the balance between gathering light energy for photosynthesis and its dissipation as heat.

Letter: Identification of a mechanism of photoprotective energy dissipation in higher plants

Alexander V. Ruban, Rudi Berera, Cristian Ilioaia, Ivo H. M. van Stokkum, John T. M. Kennis, Andrew A. Pascal, Herbert van Amerongen, Bruno Robert, Peter Horton & Rienk van Grondelle

doi:10.1038/nature06262

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