Structure Insights Into Photosystem I Octamer From Cyanobacteria

The diversity of photosystem oligomers is essential to understanding how photosynthetic organisms adapt to light conditions. Due to its structural and physiological significance, the assembly of the PSI supercomplex has been of great interest recently in terms of both chloroplast and cyanobacteria. In this study, two novel photosystem I supercomplexes were isolated for the first time from the low light incubated culture of filamentous cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC 7120. These complexes were defined as PSI hexamers and octamers through biochemical and biophysical characterization. Their 77K emission spectra indicated that the red forms of chlorophylls seemed not to be affected during oligomerization. By cryo-EM single-particle analysis, a near-atomic (7.0 Å) resolution structure of a PSI octamer was resolved, and the molecular assemblies of a stable PSI octamer were revealed.