Transient light effects in the Hill reaction of disintegrating chloroplasts in vitro.

The transient color sensitivity observed earlier in the Hill reaction of disintegrating chloroplasts (red-blue effect) was studied in detail. I. The effect was measured mainly as rates of the reduction of DPIP. It could be followed also by ferricyanide reduction or oxygen evolution. It is independent of the composition of the suspension medium and not influenced by uncouplers like methylamine. 2. Light intensity curves taken before, during and after the development of the blue decay show its presence at all light intensities. The action spectrum shows a loss of efficiency for the region λ 450-500 nm. 3. A second disintegration step which usually follows an hour later and lowers the rates in red light, has similar kinetic characteristics, but so far no particular spectral region could be implicated. 4. With ultrasonic treatment lasting from a few seconds to several minutes the double sequence of the natural loss of activity in blue and then in red light can be evoked at any time. 5. To explain these observations we assume that initially the transfer of energy from blue absorbing accessory pigments to chlorophyll is interrupted and that the same kind of pigment separation happens a second time, some-what later, among the chlorophyll pigments. The moment the light energy absorbed by the detached pigment cannot be utilized in a normal way, it promotes destructive sensitization processes which attack part of the electron transport system. The damage to the pigment system appears to occur in system II. A preliminary fluorescence curve also supports this assumption. System I (methyl red reduction) suffers through destruction of components of the electron transport chain.