Department of Marine Sciences, University of Connecticut, Groton, CT, 06340, USA.
College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361102, China.
Nat Commun. 2024 Apr 18;15(1):3337. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47797-1.
Dinoflagellates are ecologically important and essential to corals and other cnidarians as phytosymbionts, but their photosystems had been underexplored. Recently, photosystem I (PSI) of dinoflagellate sp. was structurally characterized using cryo-Electron Microscopy (cryo-EM). These analyses revealed a distinct organization of the PSI supercomplex, including two previously unidentified subunits, PsaT and PsaU, and shed light on interactions between light harvesting antenna proteins and the PSI core. These results have implications with respect to the evolution of dinoflagellates and their association with cnidarians.
甲藻是生态系统中重要的组成部分,作为共生藻对珊瑚和其他刺胞动物至关重要,但它们的光合作用系统一直未得到充分研究。最近,利用冷冻电镜(cryo-EM)对甲藻 sp. 的光系统 I(PSI)进行了结构表征。这些分析揭示了 PSI 超复合物的独特组织,包括两个以前未被识别的亚基 PsaT 和 PsaU,并阐明了光捕获天线蛋白与 PSI 核心之间的相互作用。这些结果对甲藻的进化及其与刺胞动物的关系具有重要意义。