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Plant function and evolutionary biology
RESEARCH ARTICLE

The half-life of the cytochrome bf complex in leaves of pea plants after transfer from moderately-high growth light to low light

Hui Zhu A E G , Ling-Da Zeng B E G , Xiao-Ping Yi C E , Chang-Lian Peng D , Wang-Feng Zhang C and Wah Soon Chow E F
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A School of Life Science and Food Technology, Hanshan Normal University, Chaozhou City 521 041, Guangdong Province, PR China.

B Department of Life Sciences, Huizhou University, Huizhou City 516 007, Guangdong Province, PR China.

C The Key Laboratory of Oasis Eco-agriculture, Xinjiang Production and Construction Group, Shihezi University, Shihezi, 832 003, PR China.

D Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Biotechnology for Plant Development, Key Laboratory of Ecology and Environmental Science in Guangdong Higher Education, College of Life Sciences, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510 631, PR China.

E Division of Plant Sciences, Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Acton, ACT 2601, Australia.

F Corresponding author. Email: fred.chow@anu.edu.au

G These authors contributed equally to this work and should be considered equal first authors.

Functional Plant Biology 44(3) 351-357 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP16222
Submitted: 22 June 2016  Accepted: 24 October 2016   Published: 22 November 2016

Abstract

The content of cytochrome (cyt) bf complex is the main rate-limiting factor that determines light- and CO2-saturated photosynthetic capacity. A study of the half-life of the cyt f content in leaves was conducted whereby Pisum sativum L. plants, grown in moderately high light (HL), were transferred to low light (LL). The cyt f content in fully-expanded leaves decreased steadily over the 2 weeks after the HL-to-LL transfer, whereas control leaves in HL retained their high contents. The difference between the time courses of HL-to-LL plants and control HL plants represents the time course of loss of cyt f content, with a half-life of 1.7 days, which is >3-fold shorter than that reported for tobacco leaves at constant growth irradiance using an RNA interference approach (Hojka et al. 2014). After transfer to LL (16 h photoperiod), pea plants were re-exposed to HL for 0, 1.5 h or 5 h during the otherwise LL photoperiod, but the cyt f content of fully-expanded leaves declined practically at the same rate regardless of whether HL was re-introduced for 0, 1.5 h or 5 h during each 16 h LL photoperiod. It appears that fully-expanded leaves, having matured under HL, were unable to increase their cyt f content when re-introduced to HL. These findings are relevant to any attempts to maintain a high photosynthetic capacity when the growth irradiance is temporarily decreased by shading or overcast weather.


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