Induction of CO2 and Bicarbonate Transport in the Green Alga Chlorella ellipsoidea (I. Time Course of Induction of the Two Systems).

Changes in the physiological properties of the green alga Chlorella ellipsoidea (UTEX 20) were determined during adaptation from high CO2 to air. Cells of C. ellipsoidea, grown in high CO2, had an extremely low affinity for dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). However, high-affinity DIC transport was induced rapidly after switching to air, which caused a massive decrease in the DIC concentration in the medium. Rates of O2 evolution without added carbonic anhydrase (CA) were compared with calculated rates of uncatalyzed CO2 formation in the medium as a measure of active HCO3-uptake. Cells were found to be able to use HCO3- after 5 h of adaptation and this capacity increased during the next 17 h. The stimulation of O2 evolution upon CA addition was used as a measurement of active CO2 transport: such stimulation occurred 2 h after transfer and increased during the next 5 h. Increases in O2 evolution rates were correlated closely with an increasing capacity to accumulate intracellular pools of acid-labile DIC and with decreases in K1/2(CO2) and CO2-compensation point of the cells. Treatment of cells with cycloheximide (5 [mu]g mL-1) during adaptation completely inhibited DIC transport induction, whereas treatment with chloramphenicol (400 [mu]g mL-1) had no effect, indicating the requirement for cytoplasmic protein synthesis in the induction. These results suggest that both CO2 and HCO3- transport are induced upon transfer of cells from high CO2 to air and that there is a temporal separation between the induction of the two systems.