Excitation energy transfer from phycocyanin to chlorophyll in an apcA-defective mutant of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803.

A greenish mutant of the normally blue-green cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, designated UV6p, has been isolated and characterized. UV6p possesses functional photosystems I and II (PSI and PSII) but lacks normal light harvesting phycobilisomes because allophycocyanin is absent and core-specific linker proteins are almost entirely absent. The mutation responsible for the UV6p phenotype has been identified; it is a base substitution which results in the creation of a termination codon within the coding region of the apcA gene. Phycocyanin (PC) and phycobilisome rod linker proteins are present in UV6p and, despite the absence of core components, at least 35% of the PC is associated with rod linker proteins. At 77 K, light absorbed by PC of UV6p elicits PSI fluorescence comparable to that of wild type cells but produces greatly diminished PSII fluorescence. The results indicate that the assembly of rods is independent of cores and that light energy absorbed by rods can be transferred principally and directly to PSI. This energy transfer pathway, which may also be present in wild type, may have a regulatory role in maintaining the balance of input of excitation energy into PSI versus PSII during photosynthesis.