Host: The Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists
Pages 0147
Oxygen evolving photosynthetic organisms, such as plants or cyanobacteria has high amount of glycolipids that constitute the thylakoid membranes more than 90%. This is probably because phosphate is not enough available in nature to build complicated thylakoid membranes by phospholipids. In fact, it is reported that under phosphate limiting condition, content of phosphatidylglycerol (PG), a unique phospholipid in the thylakoid membranes, decrease with concomitant increase of glycolipids in Arabidopsis or Synechococcus sp. PCC7942. Here we identified DGDG synthase gene (dgdA) of Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 and knocked out the gene to analyze functions of DGDG under phosphate limiting condition. The wild-type and dgdA mutant grew similar in optimal medium but the dgdA mutant grew obviously slow under phosphate deprivation. These results suggest that DGDG is required under phosphate limiting condition such as those in natural niches of cyanobacteria.
