Respiration and Photosynthetic Electron Transport System in Cyanobacteria—Recent Advances

摘要

It has long been recognized that cyanobacteria have ability to perform aerobic respiration in addition to oxygenic photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria] respiration is a unique process because the site of respiratory and photosynthetic electron transport is not separated as in the case of other eukaryotic cells. They share the same components in the same compartment such as NADPH,H~+, plastoquinone pool and cytochrome b_6f complex which is only used in photosynthetic electron transport in other organisms. Information on the structural genes which (may) participate in respiration is rapidly accumulating by applying techniques of molecular biology. In this article the components and pathways of respiratory electron transport of cyanobacteria are discussed with a focus on recent advances developed by molecular biology.