The structural and functional role of phosphatidylglycerol in Synechococcus PCC7942 and Thermoshynecococcus elnogatus BP-1

摘要

Synechococcus PCC7942 and Thermoshynecococcus elnogatus BP-1, cyanobacterial strains are widely used as model organisms for studying the functional and structural aspects of oxygenic photosynthesis. These bacterial strains have a fine structured internal membrane system, the thylakoid membrane system. The thylakoid membrane is the place of oxygenic photosynthesis and has highly conserved lipid composition, which consists of mostly glycolipids and about 10% phosphatidylglycerol (PG) as the only phospholipid. PG has an improtant role in the assembly and maintenance of the photosynthethic apparatus (Hagio et al. 2000). Direct evidence for supression of the electron transfer between QA and QB was obtained by the thermoluminescence and flashinduced fluorescence measurements using a pgsA mutant cell line of Synechocystis PCC6803 (Gombos et al. 2002). Additionally, it was demonstrated that PG has a primary role in the PSI trimerization process (Domonkos et al. 2003).