Volume 270,
Number 28,
Issue of July 14, pp. 16536-16541, 1995
©1995 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.
Tandem
Sequence Duplications Functionally Complement Deletions in the D1
Protein of Photosystem II
Hadar
Kless
,
Wim
Vermaas
Obligate photoheterotrophic mutants of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 that carry deletions of conserved
residues in the plastoquinone-binding niche of the D1 protein were used
to select for spontaneous mutations that restore photoautotrophic
growth. Spontaneous pseudorevertants emerged from two deletion mutants,
YNIV
and
NN
, when
the cultures were maintained long after the carbon source (glucose) had
been depleted from the medium and cells had reached stationary phase.
Most pseudorevertants were found to contain tandem duplications of
6-45-base pair DNA sequences located close to the domain carrying
the deletion; none of them restored the wild-type sequence. Three
pseudorevertants isolated from the
YNIV
mutant contained a duplication (7-15 codons) of the DNA
sequence immediately downstream of the deletion; the protein region
encoded by this DNA may include part of the putative de helix,
an important constituent of the plastoquinone-binding niche. Three
pseudorevertants isolated from the
NN
mutant
contained duplications corresponding to 2-8 amino acid residues
adjacent to the site of the deletion. In all six pseudorevertants
carrying duplications, the length of the D1 protein in the modified
regions was restored to at least the length present in wild type,
suggesting that a minimal length of these protein domains may be
required for functional integrity. In another photoautotrophic strain
isolated from
NN
, no secondary mutations
could be identified in the gene coding for the D1 protein; such
mutations apparently reside on another protein subunit of the
photosystem II complex. Photosystem II function in the pseudorevertants
was altered as compared with wild type in terms of growth and oxygen
evolution rates, photosystem II concentration, the semiquinone
equilibrium at the acceptor side, and thermostability. A mechanism
leading to tandem sequence duplication may involve DNA damage followed
by DNA synthesis, strand displacement, and ligation.