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Revealing the Dynamics of Thylakoid Membranes in Living Cyanobacterial Cells
Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes that make major contributions to the production of the oxygen in the Earth atmosphere. The photosynthetic machinery in cyanobacterial cells is housed in flattened membrane structures called thylakoids. The structural organization of cyanobacterial cells a...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4726155/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26790980 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep19627 |
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author | Stingaciu, Laura-Roxana O’Neill, Hugh Liberton, Michelle Urban, Volker S. Pakrasi, Himadri B. Ohl, Michael |
author_facet | Stingaciu, Laura-Roxana O’Neill, Hugh Liberton, Michelle Urban, Volker S. Pakrasi, Himadri B. Ohl, Michael |
author_sort | Stingaciu, Laura-Roxana |
collection | PubMed |
description | Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes that make major contributions to the production of the oxygen in the Earth atmosphere. The photosynthetic machinery in cyanobacterial cells is housed in flattened membrane structures called thylakoids. The structural organization of cyanobacterial cells and the arrangement of the thylakoid membranes in response to environmental conditions have been widely investigated. However, there is limited knowledge about the internal dynamics of these membranes in terms of their flexibility and motion during the photosynthetic process. We present a direct observation of thylakoid membrane undulatory motion in vivo and show a connection between membrane mobility and photosynthetic activity. High-resolution inelastic neutron scattering experiments on the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 assessed the flexibility of cyanobacterial thylakoid membrane sheets and the dependence of the membranes on illumination conditions. We observed softer thylakoid membranes in the dark that have three-to four fold excess mobility compared to membranes under high light conditions. Our analysis indicates that electron transfer between photosynthetic reaction centers and the associated electrochemical proton gradient across the thylakoid membrane result in a significant driving force for excess membrane dynamics. These observations provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between photosynthesis and cellular architecture. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4726155 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-47261552016-01-27 Revealing the Dynamics of Thylakoid Membranes in Living Cyanobacterial Cells Stingaciu, Laura-Roxana O’Neill, Hugh Liberton, Michelle Urban, Volker S. Pakrasi, Himadri B. Ohl, Michael Sci Rep Article Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes that make major contributions to the production of the oxygen in the Earth atmosphere. The photosynthetic machinery in cyanobacterial cells is housed in flattened membrane structures called thylakoids. The structural organization of cyanobacterial cells and the arrangement of the thylakoid membranes in response to environmental conditions have been widely investigated. However, there is limited knowledge about the internal dynamics of these membranes in terms of their flexibility and motion during the photosynthetic process. We present a direct observation of thylakoid membrane undulatory motion in vivo and show a connection between membrane mobility and photosynthetic activity. High-resolution inelastic neutron scattering experiments on the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 assessed the flexibility of cyanobacterial thylakoid membrane sheets and the dependence of the membranes on illumination conditions. We observed softer thylakoid membranes in the dark that have three-to four fold excess mobility compared to membranes under high light conditions. Our analysis indicates that electron transfer between photosynthetic reaction centers and the associated electrochemical proton gradient across the thylakoid membrane result in a significant driving force for excess membrane dynamics. These observations provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between photosynthesis and cellular architecture. Nature Publishing Group 2016-01-21 /pmc/articles/PMC4726155/ /pubmed/26790980 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep19627 Text en Copyright © 2016, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Stingaciu, Laura-Roxana O’Neill, Hugh Liberton, Michelle Urban, Volker S. Pakrasi, Himadri B. Ohl, Michael Revealing the Dynamics of Thylakoid Membranes in Living Cyanobacterial Cells |
title | Revealing the Dynamics of Thylakoid Membranes in Living Cyanobacterial Cells |
title_full | Revealing the Dynamics of Thylakoid Membranes in Living Cyanobacterial Cells |
title_fullStr | Revealing the Dynamics of Thylakoid Membranes in Living Cyanobacterial Cells |
title_full_unstemmed | Revealing the Dynamics of Thylakoid Membranes in Living Cyanobacterial Cells |
title_short | Revealing the Dynamics of Thylakoid Membranes in Living Cyanobacterial Cells |
title_sort | revealing the dynamics of thylakoid membranes in living cyanobacterial cells |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4726155/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26790980 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep19627 |
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