Light-activated heterotrophic growth of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803: a blue-light-requiring process

A glucose-tolerant strain of Synechocystis sp. strain 6803 will not grow on glucose under complete darkness unless given a daily pulse of white light, typically 5 min of 40 mumol m-2 s-1 (light-pulsed conditions). The light pulse is insufficient for photoautotrophy, as glucose is required and growth yield is dependent on glucose concentration. Growth rate is independent of fluence, but growth yield is dependent on fluence, saturating at 40 to 75 mumol m-2 s-1. A Synechocystis strain 6803 psbA mutant strain grows under light-pulsed conditions at rates similar to those for the glucose-tolerant strain, indicating that photosystem II is not required for growth. The relative spectral sensitivity of the growth of light-pulsed cultures (growth only in blue light, 400 to 500 nm, maximum at 450 nm) precludes energetic contribution from cyclic electron transport around photosystem I. Pulses of long-wavelength light (i.e., 550 and 650 nm) did not support the growth of Synechocystis strain 6803 and, when supplied before or after a blue-light pulse, did not inhibit blue-light-stimulated growth of Synechocystis strain 6803. We conclude that the required blue-light pulse does not support growth via photosynthetic electron transport but appears instead to function as an environmental signal regulating heterotrophic metabolism, cell division, or other photomorphogenic processes. We have termed the growth of Synechocystis strain 6803 pulsed with light and kept otherwise in complete darkness light-activated heterotrophic growth. This observation of a blue-light requirement for the growth of Synechocystis strain 6803 represents a novel blue light effect on the growth of a cyanobacterium.