Photosynthetic oscillations and the interdependence of photophosphorylation and electron transport as studied by a mathematical model

A simple mathematical model of photosynthetic carbon metabolism as driven by ATP and NADPH has been formulated to analyse photosynthetic oscillations. Two essential assumptions of this model are: (i) reduction of 3-phosphoglycerate to triosephosphate in the Clavin cycle is limited by ATP, not by NADPH, and (ii) photophosphorylation is affected by the availability of both ADP and NADP, while electron transport is limited by NADP only. The model produces oscillations of observed damping and period in ATP and NADP concentrations which are about 180° out of phase, while three alternative proposals regarding coupling of electron transport and photophosphorylation do not produce oscillatory model solutions. The phases of ATP and NADPH are in reasonable agreement with the available experimental data. The model (which assumes that redox control of photophosphorylation is part of the oscillatory mechanism) is compared with an alternative proposal (that oscillations are due to interdependence of turnover of adenylates and Calvin cycle intermediates). From the similarity of the mathematical structures of both models it is inviting to speculate that both models are partial aspects of ‘the oscillatory mechanism’.