photoinhibition of photosynthesis
EMSL Project ID
9295
Abstract
Photosynthesis is a highly efficient biological process that converts sunlight into chemical energy which supports life on earth. While light is the source energy for photosynthesis, too much light can be harmful for photosynthetic organism. Light can cause the decrease of photosynthetic efficiency, which eventually induces the decline of agriculture production. This phenomenon is known as “photoinhibition”. The primary target of photodamage during the photoinhibition process in higher plants is believed to be located in the photosystem II reaction center, in which only a few pigments (~0.3%) are affected. Using high performance liquid chromatography we were the first to observe the photodamage of pheophytin in the purified photosystem II reaction center complexes from spinach [Hou et al, Progress in Natural Sciences, 1995]. The preliminary experimental results showed that the damage of pheophytin is the early event of photoinhibition. The proposed project is to further investigate the detailed molecular mechanism of photodamage and photoprotection of intact PSII complexes. The key techniques used in this project are oxygen evolution activity measurement which is available at Gonzaga University, and liquid chromatography mass spectroscopy (LC-MS) which we intend to use in Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. In the last two weeks two dedicated undergraduates, John Stevens and Tracy Lien at Gonzaga University, had successfully purified the intact PSII protein complexes from spinach. We are now testing the oxygen activity of the purified protein complexes. In the proposed project we hope to focus on the relationship between photodamage of pigments via LC-MS and the oxygen evolution activity. We believe that these data will uncover deeper understanding of photodamage and photoprotection of photosynthetic reaction centers and may provide insightful information in enhancing agriculture products in general. Project Details
Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2004-08-06
End Date
2007-07-11
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Related Publications
Lin SSY, DH Kim, MH Engelhard, and SY Ha. 2010. "Water-induced Formation of Cobalt Oxides Over Supported Cobalt/Ceria-Zirconia Catalysts under Ethanol-Steam Conditions." Journal of Catalysis 273(2):229-235. doi:10.1016/j.jcat.2010.05.016