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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 281, Issue 22, 15385-15393, June 2, 2006

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Pigment Shuffling in Antenna Systems Achieved by Expressing Prokaryotic Chlorophyllide a Oxygenase in Arabidopsis^*

Masumi Hirashima, Soichirou Satoh, Ryouichi Tanaka, and Ayumi Tanaka¹

From the Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Kita-ku, N19 W8, Sapporo 060-0819 and Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi 332-0012, Japan

The organization of pigment molecules in photosystems is strictly determined. The peripheral antennae have both chlorophyll a and b, but the core antennae consist of only chlorophyll a in green plants. Furthermore, according to the recent model obtained from the crystal structure of light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b-protein complexes II (LHCII), individual chlorophyll-binding sites are occupied by either chlorophyll a or chlorophyll b. In this study, we succeeded in altering these pigment organizations by introducing a prokaryotic chlorophyll b synthesis gene (chlorophyllide a oxygenase (CAO)) into Arabidopsis. In these transgenic plants (Prochlirothrix hollandica CAO plants), 40% of chlorophyll a of the core antenna complexes was replaced by chlorophyll b in both photosystems. Chlorophyll a/b ratios of LHCII also decreased from 1.3 to 0.8 in PhCAO plants. Surprisingly, these transgenic plants were capable of photosynthetic growth similar to wild type under low light conditions. These results indicate that chlorophyll organizations are not solely determined by the binding affinities, but they are also controlled by CAO. These data also suggest that strict organizations of chlorophyll molecules are not essential for photosynthesis under low light conditions.

Received for publication, March 28, 2006

^* This work is supported in part by Grant-in-aid 15370015 (to A. T.) from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

¹ To whom correspondence should be addressed: Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Kita-ku, N19 W8, Sapporo, 060-0819 Japan. Tel./Fax: 81-11-706-5493; E-mail: ayumi{at}pop.lowtem.hokudai.ac.jp.

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