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Ammonium tolerance in the cyanobacterium S ynechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803 and the role of the psbA multigene family
Author(s) -
DAI GUOZHENG,
QIU BAOSHENG,
FORCHHAMMER KARL
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
plant, cell and environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.646
H-Index - 200
eISSN - 1365-3040
pISSN - 0140-7791
DOI - 10.1111/pce.12202
Subject(s) - strain (injury) , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , anatomy
Abstract Ammonium is one of the major nutrients for plants, and a ubiquitous intermediate in plant metabolism, but it is also known to be toxic to many organisms, in particular to plants and oxygenic photosynthetic microorganisms. Although previous studies revealed a link between ammonium toxicity and photodamage in cyanobacteria under in vivo conditions, ammonium‐induced photodamage of photosystem II ( PSII ) has not yet been investigated with isolated thylakoid membranes. We show here that ammonium directly accelerated photodamage of PSII in S ynechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803, rather than affecting the repair of photodamaged PSII . Using isolated thylakoid membranes, it could be demonstrated that ammonium‐induced photodamage of PSII primarily occurred at the oxygen evolution complex, which has a known binding site for ammonium. Wild‐type S ynechocystis PCC 6803 cells can tolerate relatively high concentrations of ammonium because of efficient PSII repair. Ammonium tolerance requires all three psbA genes since mutants of any of the three single psbA genes are more sensitive to ammonium than wild‐type cells. Even the poorly expressed psbA1 gene, whose expression was studied in some detail, plays a detectable role in ammonium tolerance.