“…Indeed, while Prochlorococcus strains have one to three identical psbA gene copies (one in PCC 9511), coding for a single D1:1-like isoform (Hess et al, 1995; Partensky and Garczarek, 2003), Synechococcus strains possess three to six psbA genes, with only one copy coding for a D1:1 isoform and two to five copies (three in WH7803), coding for D1:2 isoforms (Garczarek et al, 2008). The respective role of these isoforms has been widely studied in the literature, both in freshwater cyanobacteria (Bustos et al, 1990; Clarke et al, 1993; Campbell et al, 1995, 1998a; Sass et al, 1997; Kos et al, 2008) and in marine picocyanobacteria (Garcia-Fernandez et al, 1998; Garczarek et al, 2008). Although some variations among cyanobacteria have been observed, it is generally accepted that the D1:1 isoform would confer a higher PSII activity (Campbell et al, 1996), while D1:2 would provide a lower quantum yield but a higher PSII resistance to photoinhibition (Krupa et al, 1991;Campbell et al, 1995, 1998a; Tichy et al, 2003).…”