Effects of incident light levels on photosynthetic membrane polypeptide composition and assembly in Rhodopseudomonas sphaeroides.

Cells of Rhodopseudomonas sphaeroides were grown anaerobically with incident light levels ranging between 4,500 and 400 footcandles (ca. 48,420 and 4,304 lux). Cells grown with the higher light levels had lower contents of total bacteriochlorophyll and incorporated L-[U-14C]leucine into membrane protein at higher rates than cells grown with lower light levels. The former cells also contained relatively lower amounts of light-harvesting membrane polypeptides as compared with the latter cells. In contrast, the relative amounts of reaction center membrane polypeptides were approximately the same with varying incident light levels. The relative amounts of these membrane polypeptides were correlated with differences in rates of synthesis and assembly of the polypeptides into membrane by measuring the rates of incorporation of L-[U-14C]leucine into the membrane-bound polypeptides. No significant differences in rates of turnover of these polypeptides were detected under the varying incident light levels as measured in pulse-chase radioactive labeling experiments.