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. 1973 Dec;52(6):680–682. doi: 10.1104/pp.52.6.680

Site-specific Inhibition of Photophosphorylation in Isolated Spinach Chloroplasts by Mercuric Chloride 1

David A Bradeen a, G Douglas Winget a, J Michael Gould b, Donald R Ort b
PMCID: PMC366572  PMID: 16658631

Abstract

Photophosphorylation associated with noncyclic electron transport in isolated spinach (Spinacia oleracea) chloroplasts is inhibited to approximately 50% by low concentrations of HgCl2 (less than 1 μmole Hg2+/mg chlorophyll) when the electron transport pathway includes both sites of energy coupling. Reactions involving only a part of the electron transport system can give a functional isolation of at least two sites coupled to phosphorylation. Only one of these sites, located between the oxidation of plastoquinone and the reduction of cytochrome f, is sensitive to mercuric chloride. The energy conservation site located before plastoquinone and close to photosystem II is unaffected by HgCl2 concentrations up to 10-fold those required to inhibit phosphorylation by the coupling site after plastoquinone. This site-specific inhibition may reflect a mechanistic difference in the mode of energy coupling at the two coupling sites or a variable accessibility of HgCl2 to these sites.

Concentrations of HgCl2, which inhibit steady state phosphorylation, do not inhibit dark phosphorylation after illumination (XE), suggesting that HgCl2 affects a step in the coupling mechanism prior to the terminal step of ATP formation.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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