Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 10, 2026

Generation of Marked and Markerless Mutants in Model Cyanobacterial Species
Published on: May 29, 2016
Cytochrome b and photosynthetic sulfur bacteria
Abstract:
Chromatophores isolated from the purple sulfur bacterium Chromatium and the green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium exhibit absorbance changes in the cytochrome alpha-band region consistent with the presence of a b-type cytochrome. Cytochrome content determined by reduced minus oxidized difference spectra and by heme photochemically active bacteriochlorophyll (reaction-center bacteriochlorophyll). The b-type cytochrome in Chromatium has an alpha-band maximum at 560 nm and a midpoint oxidation-reduction potential of -5 mV at pH 8.0. The b-type cytochrome in Chlorobium has an alpha-band maximum at 564 nm and an apparent midpoint oxidation-reduction potential near -90 mV. Chromatophores isolated from both Chromatium and Chlorobium cells catalyze a photoreduction of cytochrome b that is enhanced in the presence of antimycin A. Antimycin A and 2-n-heptyl-4-hydroxyquinoline-N-oxide inhibit endogenous (but not phenazine methosulfate-mediated) cyclic photophosphorylation in Chromatium chromatophores and non-cyclic electron flow from Na-2S to NADP in Chlorobium chromatophores. These observations suggest that b-type cytochromes may function in electron transport reactions in photosynthetic sulfur bacteria.
Related Concept Videos
Photosystem I
Both these photosystems work in concert. An excited electron from PSII is relayed to PSI via an electron transport chain in the thylakoid membrane of the chloroplast, which is comprised of the carrier molecule plastoquinone, the dual-protein cytochrome complex, and plastocyanin. As electrons move between PSII and PSI, they lose energy and must be re-energized...
Anoxygenic Photosynthesis
Sulfur Assimilation
Bacterial Phylum Cyanobacteria
Anoxygenic Phototrophic Bacteria
Microbes and the Sulfur Cycle

