Abstract
Photoacclimation of two Chlorella cultures – strain g-120 characterised by a reduced size of light-harvesting antenna complex (LHC) and strain R-117 with full antenna size was studied during 5-day outdoor trials. The aim was to correlate the functional and structural changes in the photosynthetic apparatus to culture growth, photochemical activity and thylakoid composition of chlorophyll (Chl)-protein complexes and corresponding polypeptides. Chlorella g-120 was characterized by a low Chl/biomass ratio (< 0.5% of dry weight), about four times lower compared to Chlorella R-117. The important observation was that the high molecular mass Chl-binding protein supercomplexes, i.e. Photosystem II (PSII) and Photosystem I (PSI) cores associated with LHCs were physically missing or negligible in Chlorella g-120. However, there were no visible changes in Chl-protein composition in the g-120 strain during its acclimation to phototrophic conditions. Measurement of the effective absorption cross-section of PSII centres confirmed a markedly reduced functional antenna size in Chlorella g-120 as compared to R-117 which coincided with the absence of the PSII-LHC supercomplexes. We demonstrated that Chlorella g-120 represents a typical reduced antenna-size strain due to its Chl-protein composition. As compared to the full-antenna Chlorella R-117 strain, the outdoor cultures of Chlorella g-120 showed significantly lower oxygen production and electron transport rate measured in-situ. On the contrary, Chlorella g-120 revealed increased futile energy dissipation via non-photochemical quenching and higher respiration compared to Chlorella R-117. Consequently, the potential use of microalgae strains with reduced LHCII for outdoor mass cultivation may not be as straightforward as anticipated from laboratory experiments.
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The authors thank Ms Soňa Pekařová, Ms Nastasia Kastiukovich and Mr Thomas Loussier for technical assistance and Dr Radek Kaňa for discussion.
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This research was funded by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, programme National Centres of Competence (grant TN010000048/03) and in part by the EU H2020 programme, project SABANA (grant no.727874).
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Conceptualization, JM, KR, GT, JoK; methodology, JM, KR, JoK, JaK, GT, AMSB; investigation, KR, JM, GT, MB, AMSB, JaK, FC; data curation, KR, AMSB, JM, FC, MB, JaK; writing & original draft preparation, JM, KR; review and editing, KR, GT, JoK; visualization, KR, JM, JoK, JaK, FC; supervision, JM, JoK, GT; funding acquisition, JM, GT, JoK. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Masojídek, J., Ranglová, K., Bečková, M. et al. Outdoor photoacclimation of two Chlorella strains characterized by normal and reduced light-harvesting antennas: photosynthetic activity and chlorophyll-protein organization. J Appl Phycol 34, 2339–2353 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-022-02803-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-022-02803-1