Restriction of chlorophyll synthesis due to expression of glutamate 1 semialdehyde aminotransferase antisense RNA does not reduce the light-harvesting antenna size in tobacco

The formation of 5-aminolevulinate is a key regulatory step in tetrapyrrole biosynthesis. In higher plants, glutamate 1-semialdehyde aminotransferase (GSA-AT) catalyzes the last step in the sequential conversion of glutamate to 5-aminolevulinate. Antisense RNA synthesis for GSA-AT leads to reduced GSA-AT protein levels in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) plants. We have used these transgenic plants for studying the significance of chlorophyll (Chl) availability for assembly of the light-harvesting apparatus. To avoid interfering photoinhibitory stress, plants were cultivated under a low photon flux density of 70 mu mol photons m(-2) s(-1). Decreased GSA-AT expression does not seem to suppress other enzymic steps in the Chl pathway, indicating that reduced Chl content in transgenic plants (down to 12% of the wild-type level) is a consequence of reduced GSA-AT activity. Chl deficiency correlated with a drastic reduction in the number of photosystem I and photosystem II reaction centers and their surrounding antenna on a leaf area basis. Different lines of evidence from the transgenic plants indicate that complete assembly of light-harvesting pigment-protein complexes is given preference over synthesis of new reaction center/core complexes, resulting in fully assembled photosynthetic units with no reduction in antenna size. Photosynthetic oxygen evolution rates and in vivo Chl fluorescence showed that GSA-AT antisense plants are photochemically competent. Thus, we suggest that under the growth conditions chosen during this study, plants tend to maintain their light-harvesting antenna size even under limited Chl supply.