Effect of Antenna-Depletion in Photosystem II on Excitation Energy Transfer in Arabidopsis thaliana

The role of individual photosynthetic antenna complexes of Photosystem II (PSII) both in membrane organization and excitation energy transfer have been investigated. Thylakoid membranes from wild-type Arabidopsis thaliana, and three mutants lacking light-harvesting complexes CP24, CP26, or CP29, respectively, were studied by picosecond-fluorescence spectroscopy. By using different excitation/detection wavelength combinations it was possible for the first time, to our knowledge, to separate PSI and PSII fluorescence kinetics. The sub-100 ps component, previously ascribed entirely to PSI, turns out to be due partly to PSII. Moreover, the migration time of excitations from antenna to PSII reaction center (RC) was determined for the first time, to our knowledge, for thylakoid membranes. It is four times longer than for PSII-only membranes, due to additional antenna complexes, which are less well connected to the RC. The results in the absence of CP26 are very similar to those of wild-type, demonstrating that the PSII organization is not disturbed. However, the kinetics in the absence of CP29 and, especially, of CP24 show that a large fraction of the light-harvesting complexes becomes badly connected to the RCs. Interestingly, the excited-state lifetimes of the disconnected light-harvesting complexes seem to be substantially quenched.