The importance is in details - isolation and crystallization of PSII from higher plants with different contains of detergent

 

Tatsiana Holubeva1,2, Estela Pineda Molina3, Jose A. Gavira3, Daryna Kulik1,2,

Jiří Heler1,2, Jaroslava Kohoutová1,2 and Ivana Kutá Smatanová 1,2,4

 

1University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, School of complex systems FFPW , Zámek 136, 373 33 Nové Hrady

2University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Faculty of Science, Branišovská 31, 37005 České Budějovice

3Laboratorio de Estudios Cristalográficos, Edf. López Neyra, P.T. Ciencias de la Salud, Avenida del Conocimiento s/n, 18100 Armilla (Granada) Spain

4Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Inst. of Nanobiology and Structural Biology GCRC, Zámek 136, 373 33 Nové Hrady
holubeva@nh.cas.cz

 

Photosystem II (PSII) is a multisubunit pigment-protein complex that catalyses electron transfer from water to the plastoquinone pool with concomitant evolution of oxygen. PSII consists of around 25 different types of protein subunits which are organized into two structurally distinct parts: core complex (D1,D2, CP47,CP43, intrinsic and extrinsic  proteins, small proteins of unknown function) and peripheral antenna (light-harvesting complex II (LHCII) proteins).

For isolation of PSII from higher plants were selected model organisms, such as tobacco, spinach, peas, haricot and soy. In our experiments we tried two different plants spinach Spinacia oleracea and haricot Phaseolus vulgaris. Growing hydroponic plant under controlled conditions and optimization of reproducible purification protocol of homogeneous sample suitable for crystallization is the main aim of our project. We changed purification protocol and used new methodology without using of detergent TRITON, which could be problematic for PSII complex crystallization. We got preliminary results microcrystals, which require the optimization of conditions, using different crystallization technics.  It was also shown that the type of detergent and conditions of solubilization of thylakoids membranes are critical steps for crystallization, which should be carefully chosen.

 

This research was supported by the ME CR (COST LD11011, CZ.1.05/2.1.00/01.0024), by the AS CR and GAJU 141/2013/P.