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Spruce versus Arabidopsis: different strategies of photosynthetic acclimation to light intensity change

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Abstract

The acclimation of higher plants to different light intensities is associated with a reorganization of the photosynthetic apparatus. These modifications, namely, changes in the amount of peripheral antenna (LHCII) of photosystem (PS) II and changes in PSII/PSI stoichiometry, typically lead to an altered chlorophyll (Chl) a/b ratio. However, our previous studies show that in spruce, this ratio is not affected by changes in growth light intensity. The evolutionary loss of PSII antenna proteins LHCB3 and LHCB6 in the Pinaceae family is another indication that the light acclimation strategy in spruce could be different. Here we show that, unlike Arabidopsis, spruce does not modify its PSII/PSI ratio and PSII antenna size to maximize its photosynthetic performance during light acclimation. Its large PSII antenna consists of many weakly bound LHCIIs, which form effective quenching centers, even at relatively low light. This, together with sensitive photosynthetic control on the level of cytochrome b6f complex (protecting PSI), is the crucial photoprotective mechanism in spruce. High-light acclimation of spruce involves the disruption of PSII macro-organization, reduction of the amount of both PSII and PSI core complexes, synthesis of stress proteins that bind released Chls, and formation of “locked-in” quenching centers from uncoupled LHCIIs. Such response has been previously observed in the evergreen angiosperm Monstera deliciosa exposed to high light. We suggest that, in contrast to annuals, shade-tolerant evergreen land plants have their own strategy to cope with light intensity changes and the hallmark of this strategy is a stable Chl a/b ratio.

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All relevant data can be found within the manuscript and its supporting materials. Mass spectrometry proteomics data were deposited to the ProteomeXchange Consortium via PRIDE partner repository under dataset identifier PXD029868.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (Projects No. 18-12178S and 21-05497S) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Projects “Plants as a tool for sustainable global development” (no. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000827) and “SustES—Adaptation strategies for sustainable ecosystem services and food security under adverse environmental conditions” (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000797). CIISB, Instruct-CZ Centre of Instruct-ERIC EU consortium, funded by MEYS CR infrastructure Project LM2018127, is gratefully acknowledged for the financial support of the measurements at the CEITEC Proteomics Core Facility. The authors thank prof. Toshiharu Shikanai for providing us with seeds of transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana expressing flavodiiron genes flvA and flvB from the moss Physcomitrella patens, Běla Piskořová for technical assistance, and Lena Hunt for language editing of the manuscript.

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RK, MŠ, VK, VŠ, and PI planned and designed the research; all the authors performed experiments and/or analyzed the data. MŠ, VK, PI, II, and RK wrote the manuscript with input from all the authors, and all the authors revised and approved it.

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Correspondence to Michal Štroch.

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Štroch, M., Karlický, V., Ilík, P. et al. Spruce versus Arabidopsis: different strategies of photosynthetic acclimation to light intensity change. Photosynth Res 154, 21–40 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-022-00949-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-022-00949-0

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