Nitrogen control of chloroplast differentiation. Final report

This project was directed toward understanding at the physiological, biochemical and molecular levels of how photosynthetic organisms adapt to long-term nitrogen-deficiency conditions is quite incomplete even though limitation of this nutrient is the most commonly restricts plant growth and development. For our work on this problem, the unicellular green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, was grown in continuous cultures in which steady-state levels of nitrogen can be precisely controlled. N-limited cells exhibit the classical symptoms of deficiency of this nutrient, chlorosis and slow growth rates, and respond to nitrogen provision by rapid greening and chloroplast differentiation. We have addressed three aspects of this problem: (1) the regulation of pigment synthesis; (2) control of expression of nuclear genes encoding photosynthetic proteins; (3) changes in metabolic and electron transport pathways that enable sustained CO{sub 2} fixation even though they cannot be readily converted into amino and nucleic acids. For the last, principle components are: (a) enhanced mitochondrial respiratory activity intimately associated with photosynthates, and (b) the occurrence in thylakoids of a supplemental electron transport pathway that facilitates reduction of the plastoquinone pool. Together, these distinguishing features of N-limited cells are likely to enable cell survival, especially under conditions of high irradiance stress