The Development of Photosynthesis in a Greening Mutant of Chlorella and an Analysis of the Light Saturation Curve

Plant Physiol. 1972 July; 50(1): 141–148.

PMCID: PMC367330

The Development of Photosynthesis in a Greening Mutant of Chlorella and an Analysis of the Light Saturation Curve ¹

H. A. Herron and D. Mauzerall

Rockefeller University, New York, New York 10021

¹ This research is part of the Ph.D. thesis of H. A. Herron and was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grant 14827.

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract

Photosynthetic oxygen evolution considerably precedes the rise in chlorophyll during the greening of a yellow mutant of Chlorella vulgaris. Dark-grown cells required 20 times more light to saturate photosynthesis than light-grown or normal cells. The chlorophyll appears to add first to active reaction centers, then to fill in a more general antenna. The carotenoid pigments seem to add more randomly to the reaction centers. The shape of the light saturation curves can be explained with the assumption that an excitation in the antenna can reach several reaction centers. The efficiency of the total unit is constant during the greening process.

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Selected References

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