Inhibition of State Transition and Light-Harvesting Complex II Phosphorylation-Mediated Changes in Excitation Energy Distribution in the Thylakoids of SANDOZ 9785-Treated Plants

Thylakoids isolated from SAN 9785 (4-chloro-5-dimethylamino-2-phenyl-3(2H)-pyridazi-none)-treated pea plants showed an inhibition of “state transition” and the light-harvesting complex II (LHC II) phosphorylation-mediated changes in the energy distribution between photosystem II (PS II) and photosystem I (PS I) as measured by a decrease in PS II and an increase in PS I fluorescence yield. Interestingly, in these thylakoids the extent of phosphorylation-induced migration of light-harvesting complex (LHC II-P) to non-appressed mem­brane regions was only marginally inhibited. We propose that the suppression in the ability for “state transition” by SANDOZ 9785 (SAN 9785) treatment occurs due to a lack of effec­tive coupling of the migrated LHC II-P and PS I. Since we observed a decrease in the antenna size of PS I of the treated plants, the lack of effective coupling is attributed to this decrease in the antenna size of PS I.