On the PsbS-induced quenching in the plant major light-harvesting complex LHCII studied in proteoliposomes

Non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) in photosynthetic organisms provides the necessary photoprotection that allows them to cope with largely and quickly varying light intensities. It involves deactivation of excited states mainly at the level of the antenna complexes of photosystem II using still largely unknown molecular mechanisms. In higher plants the main contribution to NPQ is the so-called qE-quenching, which can be switched on and off in a few seconds. This quenching mechanism is affected by the low pH-induced activation of the small membrane protein PsbS which interacts with the major light-harvesting complex of photosystem II (LHCII). We are reporting here on a mechanistic study of the PsbS-induced LHCII quenching using ultrafast time-resolved chlorophyll (Chl) fluorescence. It is shown that the PsbS/LHCII interaction in reconstituted proteoliposomes induces highly effective and specific quenching of the LHCII excitation by a factor ≥ 20 via Chl–Chl charge-transfer (CT) state intermediates which are weakly fluorescent. Their characteristics are very broad fluorescence bands pronouncedly red-shifted from the typical unquenched LHCII fluorescence maximum. The observation of PsbS-induced Chl–Chl CT-state emission from LHCII in the reconstituted proteoliposomes is highly reminiscent of the in vivo quenching situation and also of LHCII quenching in vitro in aggregated LHCII, indicating a similar quenching mechanism in all those situations. The PsbS mutant lacking the two proton sensing Glu residues induced significant, but much smaller, quenching than wild type. Added zeaxanthin had only minor effects on the yield of quenching in the proteoliposomes. Overall our study shows that PsbS co-reconstituted with LHCII in liposomes represents an excellent in vitro model system with characteristics that are reflecting closely the in vivo qE-quenching situation.