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Photosynthesis: Complex flexibilities

Nature Plants volume 2, Article number: 16135 (2016) Cite this article

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The core of the photosynthetic complex photosystem I had been assumed to require contact with its associated light-harvesting complex I to function. But a mutant Arabidopsis line lacking the components of this complex shows that a plant's photosynthetic apparatus is more adaptable to changes in its environment than previously thought.

Plants, algae and cyanobacteria collect light and use its energy to synthesize complex organic chemicals in a two-step process. In the so-called light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis, light energy is used to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and the reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH). These high-energy molecules are then consumed in the Calvin cycle to convert inorganic CO2 into carbohydrates. Photosystems I (PSI) and II (PSII) are crucial for the light-dependent reactions, and each consists of a core containing the reaction centre, together with antenna complexes that enhance light harvesting. In this issue of Nature Plants1, Bassi and colleagues describe an Arabidopsis mutant line forced to employ a dramatically different mix of proteins to assemble its PSI antenna complex, allowing them to draw intriguing evolutionary and ecological conclusions as to why the photosystems have the composition that they do.

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Figure 1: Novel supercomplexes of PSII and PSI generated by genetic variation.

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  1. Department Biology I, Dario Leister is in the Plant Molecular Biology group, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany (LMU) and at the SFB-TR 175 (the green hub — central integrator of acclimation in plants), Germany.,

    Dario Leister

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  1. Dario Leister
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Correspondence to Dario Leister.

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Leister, D. Photosynthesis: Complex flexibilities. Nature Plants 2, 16135 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2016.135

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2016.135

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