A Possible Physiological Function of the Oxygen-photoreducing System of Rhodospirillum Rubrum

Anaerobic suspensions of Rhodospirillum rubrum cells which had been grown in the dark under low oxygen tension showed only a small increase of their ATP content when illuminated for 30 s. The same suspensions failed to start immediate growth in the light. Both high light-induced ATP levels and immediate phototrophic growth were elicited by small amounts of oxygen which were insufficient by themselves to raise the ATP levels or to support growth in the dark. The oxygen requirement for growth disappeared after some time of anaerobic illumination and was not observed in suspensions of cells which had been grown in the light under anaerobiosis. Furthermore, these phototrophic cells reached the maximum levels of ATP when illuminated in the absence of oxygen. Strain F11, a mutant derivative of Rhodospirillum rubrum which lacked the ability to photoreduce oxygen in vitro, needed abnormally high amounts of oxygen to increase its ATP levels and to grow in the light. Besides, KCN inhibited the increase of ATP levels in illuminated mutant cells but not in wild type cells. An additional difference between both strains was that the oxygen requirement for growth did not disappear in the mutant after some time of anaerobic incubation in the light. To explain these observations, it is proposed that the photosynthetic system of semiaerobically-grown Rhodospirillum rubrum becomes overreduced under anaerobiosis. The oxygen-photoreducing system, which is impaired in the mutant is apparently used to oxidize the photosynthetic system to its optimal redox state, carrying electrons to oxygen or to other endogenous acceptors which are formed during incubation in the light. The mutant seems to replace the defective system by a cyanide-sensitive pathway which may reduce oxygen but not the alternative endogenous acceptors.