title: Plastocyanin is indispensable for photosynthetic electron flow in Arabidopsis thaliana.
abstract: Plastocyanin is a soluble copper-containing protein present in the thylakoid lumen, which transfers electrons to photosystem I. In the chloroplast of the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a cytochrome c6-like protein is present, which was recently suggested to function as an alternative electron carrier to plastocyanin. We show that Arabidopsis plants mutated in both of the two plastocyanin-coding genes and with a functional cytochrome c6 cannot grow photoautotrophically because of a complete block in light-driven electron transport. Even increased dosage of the gene encoding the cytochrome c6-like protein cannot complement the double mutant phenotype. This demonstrates that in Arabidopsis only plastocyanin can donate electrons to photosystem I in vivo.
authors.affiliation: Abteilung für Pflanzenzüchtung und Ertragsphysiologie, Max-Planck-Institut für Züchtungsforschung, Carl-von-Linné-Weg 10, D-50829 Köln, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Weigel
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Varotto
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pesaresi
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Finazzi
authors.forename: Fabrice
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rappaport
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Salamini
authors.forename: Dario
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Leister
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D001483:Base Sequence; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004579:Electron Transport; D016296:Mutagenesis; D010788:Photosynthesis / Q000502:physiology*; D045322:Photosynthetic Reaction Center Complex Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D045331:Photosystem I Protein Complex; D010802:Phylogeny; D010970:Plastocyanin / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D045322:Photosynthetic Reaction Center Complex Proteins; D045331:Photosystem I Protein Complex; D010970:Plastocyanin