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A pigment-binding protein essential for regulation of photosynthetic light harvesting

Nature volume 403, pages 391–395 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

Photosynthetic light harvesting in plants is regulated in response to changes in incident light intensity. Absorption of light that exceeds a plant's capacity for fixation of CO2 results in thermal dissipation of excitation energy in the pigment antenna of photosystem II by a poorly understood mechanism. This regulatory process, termed nonphotochemical quenching, maintains the balance between dissipation and utilization of light energy to minimize generation of oxidizing molecules, thereby protecting the plant against photo-oxidative damage. To identify specific proteins that are involved in nonphotochemical quenching, we have isolated mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana that cannot dissipate excess absorbed light energy. Here we show that the gene encoding PsbS, an intrinsic chlorophyll-binding protein of photosystem II, is necessary for nonphotochemical quenching but not for efficient light harvesting and photosynthesis. These results indicate that PsbS may be the site for nonphotochemical quenching, a finding that has implications for the functional evolution of pigment-binding proteins.

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Figure 1: Nonphotochemical quenching phenotypes.
Figure 2: Light-induced spectral absorbance changes in leaves.
Figure 3: Cloning of NPQ4.
Figure 4: LHC protein levels in wild type and npq4-1.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. K. Tran and V. Canale for technical assistance; J. Brusslan for unpublished data on CH1; T. Shikanai for the npq4-4 allele; C. Funk, J. Knötzel and A. Staehelin for antibodies; R. Malkin for comments on the manuscript; and the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center for strains and DNA clones. This work was supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture–National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program and the Searle Scholars Program/The Chicago Community Trust to K.K.N., a grant from the National Science Foundation to A.G. and O.B., and grants from the Swedish Forestry and Agricultural Research Council and the Foundation for Strategic Research to S.J. When this work was initiated, K.K.N. was supported as a Department of Energy Biosciences Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation.

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  1. Magnus Rosenquist

    Present address: Plant Biochemistry, University of Lund, PO Box 117, S-221 00, Lund, Sweden

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-3102, California , USA

    Xiao-Ping Li & Krishna K. Niyogi

  2. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Plant Biology, 260 Panama Street, Stanford, 94305, California, USA

    Olle Björkman, Connie Shih & Arthur R. Grossman

  3. Umeå Plant Science Center Department of Plant Physiology, University of Umeå, Umeå, 901 87 , Sweden

    Magnus Rosenquist & Stefan Jansson

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Correspondence to Krishna K. Niyogi.

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Li, XP., Björkman, O., Shih, C. et al. A pigment-binding protein essential for regulation of photosynthetic light harvesting. Nature 403, 391–395 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35000131

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