Diatoms are ubiquitous and constitute an important group of the phytoplankton community having a major contribution to the total marine primary production. These microalgae exhibit a characteristic golden-brown colour due to a high amount of the xanthophyll fucoxanthin that plays a major role in the light-harvesting complex of photosystems. In the water column, diatoms are exposed to light intensities that vary quickly from lower to higher values. Xanthophyll cycles prevent photodestruction of the cells in excessive light intensities. In diatoms, the diadinoxanthin-diatoxanthin cycle is the most important short-term photoprotective mechanism. If the biosynthetic pathways of chloroplast pigments have been extensively studied in higher plants and green algae, the research on carotenoid biosynthesis in diatoms is still in its infancy. In this study, the data on the biosynthetic pathway of diatom carotenoids are reviewed. The early steps occur through the 2-C-methyl-D: -erythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway. Then a hypothetical pathway is suggested from dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMAPP) and isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP). Most of the enzymes of the pathway have not been so far isolated from diatoms, but candidate genes for each of them were identified using protein similarity searches of genomic data.

BackgroundArbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, which engage a mutualistic symbiosis with the roots of most plant species, have received much attention for their ability to alleviate heavy metal stress in plants, including cadmium (Cd). While the molecular bases of Cd tolerance displayed by mycorrhizal plants have been extensively analysed in roots, very little is known regarding the mechanisms by which legume aboveground organs can escape metal toxicity upon AM symbiosis. As a model system to address this question, we used Glomus irregulare-colonised Medicago truncatula plants, which were previously shown to accumulate and tolerate heavy metal in their shoots when grown in a substrate spiked with 2 mg Cd kg-1.ResultsThe measurement of three indicators for metal phytoextraction showed that shoots of mycorrhizal M. truncatula plants have a capacity for extracting Cd that is not related to an increase in root-to-shoot translocation rate, but to a high level of allocation plasticity. When analysing the photosynthetic performance in metal-treated mycorrhizal plants relative to those only Cd-supplied, it turned out that the presence of G. irregulare partially alleviated the negative effects of Cd on photosynthesis. To test the mechanisms by which shoots of Cd-treated mycorrhizal plants avoid metal toxicity, we performed a 2-DE/MALDI/TOF-based comparative proteomic analysis of the M. truncatula shoot responses upon mycorrhization and Cd exposure. Whereas the metal-responsive shoot proteins currently identified in non-mycorrhizal M. truncatula indicated that Cd impaired CO2 assimilation, the mycorrhiza-responsive shoot proteome was characterised by an increase in photosynthesis-related proteins coupled to a reduction in glugoneogenesis/glycolysis and antioxidant processes. By contrast, Cd was found to trigger the opposite response coupled the up-accumulation of molecular chaperones in shoot of mycorrhizal plants relative to those metal-free.ConclusionBesides drawing a first picture of shoot proteome modifications upon AM symbiosis and/or heavy metal stress in legume plants, the current work argues for allocation plasticity as the main driving force for Cd extraction in aboveground tissues of M. truncatula upon mycorrhization. Additionally, according to the retrieved proteomic data, we propose that shoots of mycorrhizal legume plants escape Cd toxicity through a metabolic shift implying the glycolysis-mediated mobilization of defence mechanisms at the expense of the photosynthesis-dependent symbiotic sucrose sink.

Phytoplankton is acknowledged to be a very diverse source of bioactive molecules. These compounds play physiological roles that allow cells to deal with changes of the environmental constrains. For example, the diversity of light harvesting pigments allows efficient photosynthesis at different depths in the seawater column. Identically, lipid composition of cell membranes can vary according to environmental factors. This, together with the heterogenous evolutionary origin of taxa, makes the chemical diversity of phytoplankton compounds much larger than in terrestrial plants. This contribution is dedicated to pigments and lipids synthesized within or from plastids/photosynthetic membranes. It starts with a short review of cyanobacteria and microalgae phylogeny. Then the bioactivity of pigments and lipids (anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-mutagenic, anti-cancer, anti-obesity, anti-allergic activities, and cardio- neuro-, hepato- and photoprotective effects), alone or in combination, is detailed. To increase the cellular production of bioactive compounds, specific culture conditions may be applied (e.g., high light intensity, nitrogen starvation). Regardless of the progress made in blue biotechnologies, the production of bioactive compounds is still limited. However, some examples of large scale production are given, and perspectives are suggested in the final section.

When cells get metals in small excess, mechanisms of avoidance occur, such as exclusion, sequestration, or compartmentation. When the excess reaches sub-lethal concentrations, the oxidative stress, that toxic metals trigger, leads to persistent active oxygen species. Biomolecules are then destroyed and metabolism is highly disturbed. At the chloroplast level, changes in pigment content and lipid peroxidation are observed. The disorganized thylakoids impair the photosynthetic efficiency. The Calvin cycle is also less efficient and the photosynthetic organism grows slowly. When an essential metal is given together with a harmful one, the damages are less severe than with the toxic element alone. Combined metals and phytochelatins may act against metal toxicity.

The chloroplast thylakoid ATP/ADP carrier (TAAC) belongs to the mitochondrial carrier superfamily and supplies the thylakoid lumen with stromal ATP in exchange for ADP. Here, we investigate the physiological consequences of TAAC depletion in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). We show that the deficiency of TAAC in two T-DNA insertion lines does not modify the chloroplast ultrastructure, the relative amounts of photosynthetic proteins, the pigment composition, and the photosynthetic activity. Under growth light conditions, the mutants initially displayed similar shoot weight, but lower when reaching full development, and were less tolerant to high light conditions in comparison with the wild type. These observations prompted us to study in more detail the effects of TAAC depletion on photoinhibition and photoprotection of the photosystem II (PSII) complex. The steady-state phosphorylation levels of PSII proteins were not affected, but the degradation of the reaction center II D1 protein was blocked, and decreased amounts of CP43-less PSII monomers were detected in the mutants. Besides this, the mutant leaves displayed a transiently higher nonphotochemical quenching of chlorophyll fluorescence than the wild-type leaves, especially at low light. This may be attributed to the accumulation in the absence of TAAC of a higher electrochemical H + gradient in the first minutes of illumination, which more efficiently activates photoprotective xanthophyll cycle-dependent and independent mechanisms. Based on these results, we propose that TAAC plays a critical role in the disassembly steps during PSII repair and in addition may balance the trans-thylakoid electrochemical H + gradient storage.In plants, the chloroplast thylakoid membrane is the site of light-driven photosynthetic reactions coupled to ATP synthesis. There are four major protein complexes involved in these reactions, namely, PSI, PSII, the cytochrome b 6 f, and the H + -translocating ATP synthase (for review, see Nelson and Ben-Shem, 2004). The photosystems and the cytochrome b 6 f complex also contain redox components and pigments bound to protein subunits. Their synthesis, assembly, optimal function, and repair during normal development and stress require a number of transport and regulatory mechanisms. In this context, the water-oxidizing PSII complex composed of more than 25 integral and peripheral proteins attracts special attention since its reaction center D1 subunit is degraded and replaced much faster than the other subunits under excess and even growth light conditions (for review, see Aro et al., 2005). Thus, the D1 protein turnover is the major event in the repair cycle of the PSII complex and occurs subsequently to the inactivation of PSII electron transport. D1 degradation is most likely performed by thylakoid FtsH and Deg proteases, operating on both sides of the thylakoid membrane (Lindahl et al., 2000;Haussü hl et al., 2001;Silva et al., 2003;Kapri-Pardes et al., 2007). The PSII repair cycle is regulated by reversible phosphorylation of sever...