Chloroplast Development and Regulation of LHCP-Gene Expression in Greening Cultured Soybean Cells

Abstract

Ideal conditions for a study of the expression of genes for plastid proteins occur when dark-grown plant seedlings, higher plant cells in culture, or algae are exposed to light which induces the massive formation of functional chloroplasts (ct) in these systems (1). The plant system used here is the soybean line SB-P (2) which is highly chlorophyllous and capable of photoautotrophic growth. With this cell-line, we developed a “greening system” to study light-induced ct development (3) and to determine the molecular basis of controls that regulate the expression of nuclear genes that code ct proteins. Reported here are studies on expression of the nuclear gene(s) coding the polypeptides of the light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b-binding protein (LHCP) complex of photosystem II.