2011a; Passarini et al. 2010). In conclusion, energy equilibration in monomeric Lhca complexes is very fast (5 ps) and occurs before equilibration between both monomers in a dimer. The complexes can exist in different conformations associated with different lifetimes and spectra. PSI-LHCI

supercomplex Biochemical and structural characterization In the PSI-LHCI supercomplex 4 Lhca’s are associated with the core forming half a ring on the side of PsaF/J (Boekema et al. 2001; Ben-Shem et al. 2003; Amunts et al. 2010). It is now generally accepted that one copy each of Lhca1-4 is present per supercomplex (Ballottari et al. 2004) and that each Lhca occupies a fixed position in the structure: The sequence going from the G pole (position of PsaG) of the core to that of K (position of PsaK) (Fig. 1), is Lhca1, Lhca4, Lhca2, and Lhca3 (Amunts et al. 2007; Wientjes et al. 2009). The composition of the outer antenna was found to be constant in all light Selleck SNS-032 conditions (Ballottari et al. 2007) and even in mutants lacking individual subunits, the place of the missing complex is not taken by any other Lhca (Klimmek et al. 2005; Morosinotto et al. 2005a; Wientjes et al. 2009), clearly indicating that the complexes are not interchangeable.

The only exception is Lhca4 that in the Lhca4 KO mutant is partially substituted by Lhca5 (Wientjes et al. 2009) in agreement with the fact that in vitro Lhca5 is able to form a stable dimer with Lhca1 (Storf et al. 2005). This lowers buy SU5416 the content of red forms in the complex as Lhca4 contains red forms, while Lhca5 does not, and may be of importance in specific light conditions. It has also been proposed that Lhca5 is interacting with Lhca2 and Lhca3 (Lucinski et al. 2006) and that Lhca5 and Lhca6 are necessary for the Talazoparib mw formation of the NADPH dehydrogenase-PSI supercomplex in A. thaliana (Peng et al. 2009). Although information about Lhca5 and Lhca6 is still lacking, their low expression

levels in all tested conditions indicate that the basic PSI-LHCI unit in higher plants is only composed of the core complex and one copy each of Lhca1-4. The 3D structure has also shown that the PSI-LHCI supercomplex coordinates 173 Chl molecules Verteporfin in total. Around 100 of them are associated with the core as in cyanobacteria, 56 are associated with the Lhca complexes and the others are located in between the Lhca’s and the core and are named “gap” pigments (Amunts et al. 2010). Interestingly, although the structure does not show tight protein–protein interactions between the subunits of the core and the outer antenna, their association appears to be very strong in plants at variance with the association of LHCII to the PSII core, which is rather weak (Wientjes et al. 2009). In summary, the PSI-LHCI complex in plants is composed of the core plus 4 Lhca’s. The number and organization of the Lhca’s are identical in all growth conditions.