Cyanobacterial photosynthesis: The light reactions

Abstract

Cyanobacterial photosynthesis can be regarded as the blueprint for the photosynthesis of green algae and higher plants: While most of the principal reactions on the molecular level are preserved, their structural arrangement is compact and intimately connected with the respiratory chain. This allows conclusions on the evolution of special functional membrane domains which finally lead to separate membranes in specialized organelles. The robustness of some cyanobacterial-especially thermophilic-strains also allowed their isolation and structural and functional characterization up to the molecular level while keeping their full activity. This is especially true for the X-ray structures with highest available resolution of photosystems 1 and 2 and the cyt b6f complex. Due to the ease of transformation, generated cyanobacterial mutants can be used for elucidating photosynthesis-related cellular processes which-if combined with synthetic biology approaches-can be harnessed for light-triggered biotechnological processes such as biofuel or fine chemical production.