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Updated: Aug 7, 2026

Plastoglobule Lipid Droplet Isolation from Plant Leaf Tissue and Cyanobacteria
Published on: October 6, 2022
Lipids in oxygen-evolving photosystem II complexes of cyanobacteria and higher plants
Isamu Sakurai1, Jian-Ren Shen, Jing Leng
1Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Komaba 3-8-1, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902.
Abstract:
Lipids in dimeric photosystem II complexes prepared from two species of cyanobacteria, Thermosynechococcus vulcanus and Synechocystis sp. PCC6803, and two higher plants, spinach and rice, were analyzed to determine how many lipid molecules and what class of lipids are present in the photosystem II complexes. It was estimated that 27, 20, 8, and 7 lipid molecules per monomer are bound to the dimeric photosystem II complexes of T. vulcanus, Synechocystis, spinach, and rice, respectively. In each of the organisms, the lipid composition of the photosystem II complexes was quite different from that of the thylakoid membranes used for preparation of the complexes. The content of phosphatidylglycerol in the photosystem II complexes of each organism was much higher than that in the thylakoid membranes. Phospholipase A2 treatment of the photosystem II complexes of Synechocystis that degraded phosphatidylglycerol resulted in impairment of QB-mediated but not QA-mediated electron transport. These findings suggest that phosphatidylglycerol plays important roles in the electron transport at the QB-binding site in photosystem II complexes.
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