Comparison of photosystem II complexes isolated from tobacco and two chlorophyll deficient tobacco mutants

A comparative study of photosystem II complexes isolated from tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L. cv. John William's Broadleaf) which contains normal stacked thylakoid membranes, and from two chlorophyll deficient tobacco mutants (Su/su and Su/su var. Aurea) which have low stacked grana or essentially unstacked thylakoids with occasional membrane doublings, has been carried out. The corresponding photosystem II complexes had an O2 evolving activity ranging from 290 (for the wild type) to 1100 μmol O2 x mg chlorophyll(-1) x h(-1) (for the mutant Su/su var. Aurea). The reduced photosynthetic unit size was also obvious in the mangenese and cytochromeb559 content. The photosystem II complex from the wild type contained 4 Mn and 1 cytochromeb559 per 200 to 280 chlorophylls, while the corresponding value for the mutant Su/su var. Aurea was 4 Mn and 1 cytochromeb559 per 35 to 60 chlorophylls. We have also examined the polypeptide composition and show that the photosystem II complex from the wild type consisted of polypeptides of 48, 42, 33, 32, 30, 28, 23, 21, 18, 16 and 10 kDa, while the mutant complex mainly contained the polypeptides of 48, 42, 33, 32, 30, 28 and 10 kDa. In the mutant photosystem II complex the light-harvesting chlorophyll protein (peptide of 28 kDa) was reduced by a factor of 5 to 6 as compared to the wild type. With respect to the peptide composition and the photosynthetic unit size, the Triton-solubilized photosystem II complex from the mutant Su/su var. Aurea was very similar to O2 evolving photosystem II reaction center core complexes.