Freeze-fracture studies on barley plastid membranes. VI. Location of the P700-chlorophyll a-protein 1.

The photosystem I mutant of barley, viridis-zb63, which totally lacks the P700-chlorophyll a-protein 1 was characterised by rotary shadowed, freeze-fracture electron microscopy. Objective measurements were made of particle density and size distribution for all four fracture faces, and compared with values for wild-type. A highly significant reduction in the size of the PFu particles was found, which could be attributed to the loss of a population of large particles from the mutant PFu face. A corresponding loss of EFu pits was also observed. It is concluded that the photosystem I reaction centre and two or three ancillary polypeptides are located in the large PFu particles which account for two-thirds of the total, and that these particles span the membrane. Since no differences were seen on the PFs and EFs faces, there was no evidence for the localisation of any photosystem I in appressed granal membranes, supporting the concept of extreme lateral heterogeneity. A model is presented of the localisation of different functional polypeptide units to different freeze-fracture particles within the membrane. A peculiar feature of viridis-zb63 thylakoids was the presence of EFs particle arrays in vivo.