Supramolecular Structure Basis for the Regulation and Control of the Photosynthetic State Transition of Chlorella

Chlorella is a common photosynthetic organism in water and soil.

State transition regulation is a rapid response mechanism for photosynthetic organisms to adapt to changes in light conditions and balance excitation energy distribution between two photosystems

Compared with plants, state transition regulation is more important for green algae.

The Li Mei research group and Liu Zhenfeng research group of the Institute of Biophysics, together with the research group of Professor Minagawa of the National Institute of Basic Biology, Japan, jointly researched and analyzed the high-resolution cryo-EM structure of the Chlamydomonas reinhardtii PSI-LHCI-LHCII super-composite

Based on high-quality electron microscopy density maps, the researchers accurately identified all LhcbM proteins in phosphorylated LHCII that constitute the supercomplex, and found that LhcbM1 and LhcbM5 directly interact with the PSI core through their phosphorylated amino terminal regions (Figure bc).

The above research results were published in the journal Nature Plants on July 8, 2021 , entitled "Structural basis of LhcbM5-mediated state transitions in green algae"

Picture: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii PSI-LHCI-LHCII complex

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(Contribution: Li Mei Research Group)