Plastoquinone Homeostasis in Plant Acclimation to Light Intensity

Arabidopsis plants were grown from seeds at different photon flux densities (PFDs) of white light ranging from 65 to 800 µmol photons m s. Increasing PFD brought about a marked accumulation of plastoquinone (PQ) in leaves. However, the thylakoid photoactive PQ pool, estimated to about 700 pmol mg leaf dry weight, was independent of PFD; PQ accumulation in high light mostly occurred in the photochemically non-active pool (plastoglobules, chloroplast envelopes) which represented up to 75% of total PQ. The amounts of PSII reaction center (on a leaf dry weight basis) also were little affected by PFD during growth, leading to a constant PQ/PSII ratio at all PFDs. Boosting PQ biosynthesis by overexpression of a solanesyl diphosphate-synthesizing enzyme strongly enhanced the PQ levels, particularly at high PFDs. Again, this accumulation occurred exclusively in the non-photoactive PQ pool. Mutational suppression of the plastoglobular ABC1K1 kinase led to a selective reduction of the thylakoid PQ pool size to ca. 400 pmol mg in a large range of PFDs, which was associated with a restriction of the photosynthetic electron flow. Our results show that photosynthetic acclimation to light intensity does not involve modulation of the thylakoid PQ pool size or the amounts of PSII reaction centers. There appears to be a fixed amount of PQ molecules for optimal interaction with PSII and efficient photosynthesis, with the extra PQ molecules being stored outside the thylakoid membranes, implying a tight regulation of PQ distribution within the chloroplasts.