Isolation of Thylakoid Membranes from the Cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 and Analysis of Their Photosynthetic Pigment-protein Complexes by Clear Native-PAGE.

Cyanobacteria represent a frequently used model organism for the study of oxygenic photosynthesis. They belong to prokaryotic microorganisms but their photosynthetic apparatus is quite similar to that found in algal and plant chloroplasts. The key players in light reactions of photosynthesis are Photosystem I and Photosystem II complexes (PSI and PSII, resp.), large membrane complexes of proteins, pigments and other cofactors embedded in specialized photosynthetic membranes named thylakoids. For the study of these complexes a mild method for the isolation of the thylakoids, their subsequent solubilization and analysis is essential. The presented protocol describes such a method which utilizes breaking the cyanobacterial cells using glass beads in an optimized buffer. This is followed by their solubilization using dodecyl-maltoside and analysis using optimized clear-native gel electrophoresis which preserves the native oligomerization state of both complexes and allows the estimation of their content.