The occurrence of a thylakoid-localized small zinc finger protein in land plants

Previous studies showed that LOW QUANTUM YIELD OF PHOTO SYSTEM II 1 (LQY1), a small thylakoid zinc finger protein was involved in maintenance and repair of Photosystem II (PSII). Here the author provides additional evidence for the role of LQY1 in PSII maintenance and repair and further commentary on the occurrence of LQY1 protein among land plants. After exposure to high light, Arabidopsis thaliana mutants lacking functional LQY1 gene (At1g75690) are more photoinhibited than wild-type control plants; display higher total non-photochemical quenching and photoinhibitory quenching. These results are consistent with the initial observation that lqy1 mutants have lower PSII efficiency than wild-type plants after high light treatment. The low-PSII-efficiency phenotype can be suppressed upon complementation of lqy1 mutants with the LQY1 gene from wild-type plants. This further demonstrates that LQY1 is important in maintaining the activity of photosystem II in Arabidopsis. LQY1 homologs are present in land plants but are absent from sequenced genomes of green algae and cyanobacteria, which may reflect plant adaptation to excess light stress during the transition to land.