The Mehler reaction site is the Phylloquinone within Photosystem I

Abstract

Photosynthesis is a vital process, responsible for fixing carbon dioxide, and producing most of the organic matter on the planet. However, photosynthesis has some inherent limitations in utilizing solar energy. Up to a third of the energy absorbed is lost in the reduction of O2 to produce the superoxide radical, which occurs principally within photosystem I (PSI) via the Mehler reaction. Strikingly, the precise location as well as the evolutionary role of the reaction have long been a matter of debate. For decades, O2 reduction was assumed to take place solely in the distal iron-sulfur clusters of PSI rather than within the two asymmetrical cofactor branches. Here we demonstrate that under high irradiance, O2 photoreduction by PSI takes place at the phylloquinone of one of the branches (the A-branch). This conclusion derives from the light dependency of the O2 photoreduction rate constant, and from the high rates of O2 photoreduction in PSI complexes lacking iron-sulfur clusters and in a mutant PSI, in which the lifetime of this phyllosemiquinone state is extended 100-fold. On these grounds, we suggest that the Mehler reaction serves as a release valve, functioning only when needed, under conditions where both the distal iron-sulfur clusters of PSI and the mobile ferredoxin pool are over reduced.

Coral symbionts evolved a functional polycistronic flavodiiron gene

“…In plants' thylakoid membrane of the chloroplasts and cyanobacteria, photosystem II and I (PSII and PSI) are another hot spot for generation of ROS (Krieger-Liszkay 2005;Schmitt et al 2014;Dietz et al 2016). During photosynthesis, O2 − is mostly generated at the PSI when the light energy is strong and excessively overcomes the demand for photosynthetic CO2 assimilation (Inoue et al 1989;Kozuleva et al 2020;Roach et al 2015).…”