Host: The Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists
Pages 0111
Chloroplastic NDH (NAD(P)H dehydrogenase) of higher plants is localized in the thylakoid membranes. Recent studies revealed that NDH plays an important role in cyclic electron flow around photosystem I to produce ATP, especially for adapting to environmental changes in C3 plants and for driving the CO2-concentrating mechanism in C4 plants. Although, the 14 subunits of NDH have been identified, "electron input devices" which are responsible for the binding and oxidizing NAD(P)H are still unknown. To reveal the unidentified NDH subunits, we developed a novel bioinformatics strategy by combining a co-expression analysis and a phylogenetic profiling. We found 65 proteins as the candidates for novel NDH subunits by our in silico approach, and measured NDH activity in Arabidopsis lines carrying a T-DNA insertion in these candidate genes. As a result, we found the six novel proteins that were indispensable for the accumulation of NDH. Biochemical characterization of these proteins are discussed.
