The photosystem I supercomplex from a primordial green alga Ostreococcus tauri harbors three light-harvesting complex trimers

  1. Asako Ishii
  2. Jianyu Shan
  3. Xin Sheng
  4. Eunchul Kim
  5. Akimasa Watanabe
  6. Makio Yokono
  7. Chiyo Noda
  8. Chihong Song
  9. Kazuyoshi Murata
  10. Zhenfeng Liu  Is a corresponding author
  11. Jun Minagawa  Is a corresponding author
  1. National Institute for Basic Biology, Japan
  2. Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
  3. National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Japan

Abstract

As a ubiquitous picophytoplankton in the ocean and an early-branching green alga, Ostreococcus tauri is a model prasinophyte species for studying the functional evolution of the light-harvesting systems in photosynthesis. Here, we report the structure and function of the O. tauri photosystem I (PSI) supercomplex in low light conditions, where it expands its photon-absorbing capacity by assembling with the light-harvesting complexes I (LHCI) and a prasinophyte-specific light-harvesting complex (Lhcp). The architecture of the supercomplex exhibits hybrid features of the plant-type and the green algal-type PSI supercomplexes, consisting of a PSI core, a Lhca1-Lhca4-Lhca2-Lhca3 belt attached on one side and a Lhca5-Lhca6 heterodimer associated on the other side between PsaG and PsaH. Interestingly, nine Lhcp subunits, including one Lhcp1 monomer with a phosphorylated amino-terminal threonine and eight Lhcp2 monomers, oligomerize into three trimers and associate with PSI on the third side between Lhca6 and PsaK. The Lhcp1 phosphorylation and the light-harvesting capacity of PSI were subjected to reversible photoacclimation, suggesting that the formation of OtPSI-LHCI-Lhcp supercomplex is likely due to a phosphorylation-dependent mechanism induced by changes in light intensity. Notably, this supercomplex did not exhibit far-red peaks in the 77 K fluorescence spectra, which is possibly due to the weak coupling of the chlorophyll a603-a609 pair in OtLhca1-4.

Data availability

The atomic coordinates of the OtPSI-LHCI-Lhcp supercomplex have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) with accession code 7YCA. The cryo-EM map of the supercomplex has been deposited in the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB) with accession code EMD-33737. The local maps and corresponding models of the three individual Lhcp trimers have also been deposited in the EMDB and PDB under accession codes of EMD-34733 and 8HG3, EMD-34735 and 8HG5, EMD-34736 and 8HG6.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Asako Ishii

    Division of Environmental Photobiology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  2. Jianyu Shan

    National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  3. Xin Sheng

    National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
    Competing interests
    Xin Sheng, is affiliated with Shenzhen Jingtai Technology Co. Ltd. The author has no financial interests to declare.
  4. Eunchul Kim

    Division of Environmental Photobiology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Akimasa Watanabe

    Division of Environmental Photobiology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6068-1328
  6. Makio Yokono

    Division of Environmental Photobiology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Chiyo Noda

    Division of Environmental Photobiology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  8. Chihong Song

    National Institute for Physiological Sciences, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Okazaki, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Kazuyoshi Murata

    National Institute for Physiological Sciences, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Okazaki, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9446-3652
  10. Zhenfeng Liu

    Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
    For correspondence
    liuzf@ibp.ac.cn
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5502-9474
  11. Jun Minagawa

    Division of Environmental Photobiology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, Japan
    For correspondence
    minagawa@nibb.ac.jp
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3028-3203

Funding

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (21H04778)

  • Jun Minagawa

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (21H05040)

  • Jun Minagawa

National Natural Science Foundation of China (31925024)

  • Zhenfeng Liu

Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB37020101)

  • Zhenfeng Liu

Chinese Academy of Sciences (YSBR-015)

  • Zhenfeng Liu

National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFA0503702)

  • Zhenfeng Liu

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2023, Ishii et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Asako Ishii
  2. Jianyu Shan
  3. Xin Sheng
  4. Eunchul Kim
  5. Akimasa Watanabe
  6. Makio Yokono
  7. Chiyo Noda
  8. Chihong Song
  9. Kazuyoshi Murata
  10. Zhenfeng Liu
  11. Jun Minagawa
(2023)
The photosystem I supercomplex from a primordial green alga Ostreococcus tauri harbors three light-harvesting complex trimers
eLife 12:e84488.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84488

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84488

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