Light-dependent structural changes in the lamellar membranes of isolated spinach chloroplasts: Measurement by electron microscopy

Small-Angle X-Ray and Neutron Scattering on Photosynthetic Membranes

“…Illumination-induced thylakoid ultrastructure changes are versatile: both shrinkage and expansion of thylakoid repeat distance have been observed in different ionic environments (Deamer and Packer, 1967). Numerous TEM experiments suggest that thylakoid membranes both in vivo and in vitro contract in response to illumination; this shrinkage is darkreversible, and its degree depends on light intensity (Murakami and Packer, 1969;Murakami and Packer, 1970a;Murakami and Packer, 1970b;Sundquist and Burris, 1970;Miller and Nobel, 1972;Yamamoto et al, 2013;Yoshioka-Nishimura et al, 2014;Wood et al, 2018). Scattering can also follow thylakoid stacking repeat distance changes-experiments on isolated thylakoids show that thylakoid repeat distance decreases in a matter of minutes when illuminated with white light intensities up to 1,000 μmol photons m −2 s −1 and is restored when the light is turned off (Nagy et al, 2011;Posselt et al, 2012;Nagy et al, 2013); the higher the applied light intensity, the larger and quicker the D R decrease (Nagy et al, 2013).…”