Photobleaching of photosynthetic pigments in spinach thylakoid membranes. Effect of temperature, oxygen and DCMU Original Research Article

The time dependence of photobleaching of photosynthetic pigments under high light illumination of isolated spinach thylakoid membranes at 22 and 4 °C was investigated. At 22 °C, the bleaching at 678, 472 and 436 nm was prominent but lowering the temperature up to 4 °C during illumination prevented the pigments from bleaching almost completely. The accelerating effect on pigment photobleaching by the presence of 3-(3,4 dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethyl-urea)—(DCMU), a well-known inhibitor of the electron transport and known to prevent photosystem I (PSI) and photosystem II (PSII) against photoinhibitory damage, was also suppressed at low temperature. At 22 °C in the presence and absence of DCMU, the decrease of the absorption at 678 and 472 nm was accompanied by a shift to the shorter wavelengths. To check the involvement of reactive oxygen species in the process, pigment photobleaching was followed in anaerobiosis. The effects of the three different environmental factors—light, temperature and DCMU—on the dynamics of photobleaching are discussed in terms of different susceptibility of the main pigment–protein complexes to photoinhibition.