Effects of surface potential on the equilibrium and kinetics of redox reactions of membrane components with external reagents in chromatophores from Rhodopseudomonas sphaeroides.

The characteristics of the salt and pH dependences of the redox levels of cytochrome c2 and reaction center bacteriochlorophyll were studied in chromatophores from Rhodopseudomonas sphaeroides. They could be explained in terms of the difference of redox potential in the membrane from that in the bulk aqueous phase due to the electrostatic potential difference arising from charges fixed on the membrane surface. The midpoint potentials (Em) became lower when the surface potential (the electrostatic potential at the surface with reference to the bulk aqueous phase) had large negative values at lower salt concentrations at neutral pH, as predicted by the Gouy-Chapman theory. The rate of oxidation of cytochrome c2 in chromatophores by ferricyanide also depended on salt and pH levels. The rate was low at low salt concentrations, probably because of the lower surface concentration of ferricyanide compared with the bulk concentration, due to the surface potential.