Abstract
Cytochrome (Cyt) b559 is a key component of the photosystem II (PSII) complex for its assembly and proper function. Previous studies have suggested that Cytb559 has functional roles in early assembly of PSII and in secondary electron transfer pathways that protect PSII against photoinhibition. In addition, the Cytb559 in various PSII preparations exhibited multiple different redox potential forms. However, the precise functional roles of Cytb559 in PSII remain unclear. Recent site-directed mutagenesis studies combined with functional genomics and biochemical analysis, as well as high-resolution x-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy studies on native, inactive, and assembly intermediates of PSII have provided important new structural and mechanistic insights into the functional roles of Cytb559. This mini-review gives an overview of new exciting results and their significance for understanding the structural and functional roles of Cytb559 in PSII.
Introduction
Cytochrome (Cyt) b559 is an essential component of the photosystem II (PSII) complex for proper functioning and assembly (reviews by Whitmarsh and Pakrasi, ; Stewart and Brudvig, ; Shinopoulos and Brudvig, ; Müh and Zouni, ; Chu and Chiu, ). Cytb559 is present in the PSII of all oxygenic photosynthetic organisms but is not found in anoxygenic type II reaction centers of photosynthetic bacteria (Majumder and Blankenship, ). Thus, Cytb559 likely co-evolved with the oxygen-evolving function of cyanobacteria. Cytb559 is a heme-bridged heterodimer protein that is comprised of 1 α and 1 β subunit (subunits PsbE and PsbF encoded by psbE and psbF, respectively) (Umena et al., ; review by Müh and Zouni, ). Each subunit provides a histidine ligand for the non-covalently bound heme, which is located near the cytoplasmic side of PSII (Babcock et al., ). In contrast, most mono-heme cytochromes are made of a single polypeptide (Majumder and Blankenship, ). In addition, the Cytb559 in different PSII preparations features multiple distinct redox potential forms: high potential (HP) with Em + 370–400 mV, intermediate potential (IP) with Em of about 200 mV, and low potential (LP) with Em of about 0–80 mV (Ortega et al., ; Thompson et al., ; Kaminskaya et al., ; Roncel et al., ). The redox potential of the HP form in Cytb559 is unusually high for b-type cytochromes. The redox midpoint potentials of most b-type cytochromes were in the range of −225 to +168 mV (Liu et al., ). The HP form is typically predominant in native PSII preparations, whereas the IP and LP forms are predominant in less intact or inactive PSII preparations such as Tris-washing treatment, which removes manganese and extrinsic proteins of PSII (Ghanotakis et al., ; Thompson et al., ; Kaminskaya et al., ; Roncel et al., ).
Many studies have suggested that Cytb559 may participate in secondary electron transfer pathways that protect PSII against photoinhibition (Heber et al., ; Thompson and Brudvig, ; Barber and De Las Rivas, ; Poulson et al., ; Faller et al., ; Tracewell and Brudvig, ; review by Shinopoulos and Brudvig, ). Cytb559 in the HP form may donate its electron via a β-carotene molecule (CarD2) to reduce the highly oxidizing chlorophyll (P680+) in PSII reaction centers under donor-side photoinhibitory conditions. In addition, Cytb559 may accept an electron from the acceptor side of PSII [e.g., or reduced plastoquinones (PQs)] to prevent the formation of reactive oxygen species under acceptor-side photoinhibitory conditions (Nedbal et al., ; Barber and De Las Rivas, ; Bondarava et al., , ). Moreover, previous studies showed that the Cytb559 in tris-treated PSII has superoxide oxidase and reductase activities (Tiwari and PospÃÅ¡il, ; Pospisil, ). However, the precise functional roles of Cytb559 in PSII are still not clear.
Previous mutagenesis studies on the model cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 (hereafter Synechocystis), the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, and tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) all showed that the assembly of PSII reaction centers requires the presence of both the α and β subunits of Cytb559 (Pakrasi et al., ; Morais et al., ; Swiatek et al., ). In addition, several studies demonstrated that Cytb559 subunits interacted with D2 to form the essential intermediate complex D2 module during the early steps of PSII assembly (Komenda et al., ; Kiss et al., ). To study the structural and redox roles of the heme coordination of Cytb559 in PSII, a series of site-directed mutants with mutations on histidine heme ligands of Cytb559 was constructed and characterized in the model cyanobacterium Synechocystis and green alga Chlamydomonas (Pakrasi et al., ; Morais et al., ; Hung et al., ; Hamilton et al., ). Most of these Cytb559 mutants accumulated only a little active PSII and, therefore, were unable to grow photoautotrophically. These previous findings suggest that proper coordination of the heme cofactor in Cytb559 is important for the assembly or stability of PSII in Synechocystis (Pakrasi et al., ; Hung et al., , ).
Tandem Gene Amplification Restored PSII Accumulation of Cytb559 Mutant Cyanobacteria
A recent study developed a novel antenna attenuation method that restored photoautotrophic growth and PSII accumulation in several Cytb559 mutant strains of Synechocystis with mutations in His-22 residues (heme ligands) of PsbE and PsbF (Figure 1A; Chiu et al., ). Whole-genome sequencing revealed that both types of autotrophic transformants (spontaneously generated in the early study or generated from the new antenna attenuation method in this recent study) carried 5–15 copies of tandem amplifications of chromosomal segments containing the mutated psbEFLJ operon (Figure 1B). Multiple copies of the psbEFLJ operon in these transformants were maintained only during autotrophic growth, whereas the number of copies gradually decreased under photoheterotrophic conditions (Figure 1C). This situation led to a 10- to 20-fold increase in transcript level of the mutated Cytb559 gene (Figure 1D). The resulting overproduction of mutation-destabilized Cytb559 subunits allowed for sufficient PSII accumulation and restored the photoautotrophic growth of the strains. This study demonstrated how tandem gene amplification restored PSII accumulation and photoautotrophic growth in Cytb559 mutants of cyanobacteria, which may be an important adaptive mechanism of cyanobacteria for survival.
Figure 1
In contrast, in Thermosynechococcus elongatus, the heme coordination of Cytb559 is not required for the assembly of PSII variants with psbA3 as the D1 subunit (Sugiura et al.,
Structural Determinants of Redox Potentials of Cytb559
One of the distinct features of Cytb559 in PSII is the presence of different redox potential forms. The HP form of Cytb559 predominates in native PSII preparations of plants and Thermosynechococcus. In addition, for some unknown reason, intact PSII preparations from Synechocystis contained primarily the IP form of Cytb559 but lacked the HP form (Ortega et al.,
Structural determinants of the different redox-potential forms of Cytb559 are still not clear. Previous studies suggested that the different redox-potential forms may be due to changes in hydrophobicity of the heme ligation environment (Krishtalik et al.,
Figure 2

Heme coordination environments of Cytb559 in cryo-EM structural models of different types of PSII preparations. (A) Native PSII dimer (PSII-D) of Thermosynechococcus (PDB 7D1U); (B) native PSII-D of Synechocystis (PDB 7RCV); (C) inactive PSII monomer (Apo-PSII-M) of Synechocystis (PDB 6WJ6); (D) inactive PSII-LHCII supercomplex from Arabidopsis (PDB 7OUI); (E) Apo-PSII-M of Thermosynechococcus (PDB 7NHO); and (F) PSII assembly intermediate (PSII-I) of Thermosynechococcus (PDB 7NHP). The figures were created using PyMol.
In addition, striking changes in the His–Fe ligation as well as orientation and interacting environments of the heme propionates of Cytb559 were observed in the 2.7-Å resolution cryo-EM structural model of inactive LHCII-PSII supercomplex of Arabidopsis (Graça et al.,
Taken together, the differences in the bonding of His–Fe ligation and the electrostatic environment of the two heme propionate groups of Cytb559 may serve as important structural determinants for different redox forms of Cytb559 in various PSII preparations. These striking structural changes in the heme ligation environment for inactive PSII is expected to change the hydrophobicity of the heme ligation environment (Krishtalik et al.,
PsbY Protein is Required for the High Redox Potential Form of Cytb559 in Arabidopsis
A recent study on ΔpsbY Arabidopsis mutants showed that Cytb559 was present in only its oxidized LP form in the absence of the PsbY protein (von Sydow et al.,
A Thylakoid Membrane-Bound Rubredoxin May Act Together With Cytb559 in De Novo Assembly and Repair of PSII
A conserved thylakoid membrane-bound rubredoxin (RBD1 in photosynthetic eukaryotes and RubA in cyanobacteria) is required for PSII biogenesis in diverse oxygenic photoautotrophs (Calderon et al.,
Psb28 Protein Binds to Cytb559 in the RC47 Complex During the Assembly of PSII
A recent study that conducted chemical cross-linking combined with mass spectrometry predicted the location of Psb28 to be in close proximity to the N-terminal domain of the Cytb559 protein (Weisz et al.,
The QC Site May Be Involved in Modulating Short-Term Light Responses in PSII of Cyanobacteria
A previous study on the 2.9-Ã… resolution PSII crystal structure revealed the binding of a PQ molecule, QC, in a hydrophobic cavity near Cytb559 (Guskov et al.,
Several QC-site Synechocystis mutant strains (e.g., S28Aβ, V32Fβ, and A16FJ) showed significantly higher photosynthesis growth rate and biomass accumulation than wild-type strains (Huang et al.,
Conclusions and Perspectives
Recent mutagenesis studies combined with high-resolution protein crystallography and cryo-EM structural analysis as well as functional genomics and biochemical analysis have greatly advanced our understanding of the structural and functional roles of Cytb559 in the assembly, proper function, and photoprotection of PSII. Studies have revealed possible structural determinants for different redox forms of Cytb559 in various PSII preparations. In addition, several assembly factors and protein subunits may act together with Cytb559 to protect the intermediates of PSII reaction center complexes during de novo assembly and repair. These integrated approaches may lead to the final proof of the molecular mechanisms of Cytb559 in PSII.
Funding
This study was supported by Academia Sinica for H-AC.
Publisher's Note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Statements
Author contributions
Y-FC and H-AC wrote the article. H-AC acquired the funding and supervised the project. Both authors read and approved the manuscript.
Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Tzu-ping Ko of Academia Sinica Protein Clinic for the assistance with interpretations of Cryo-EM structural models.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Supplementary material
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.914922/full#supplementary-material
- Car
β-carotene
- Cryo-EM
cryo-electron microscopy
- Cytb559
cytochrome b559
- EPR
electron paramagnetic resonance
- LHCII
light-harvesting complex II
- HP
high potential
- IP
intermediate potential
- LP
low potential
- PQ
plastoquinone
- PQH2
plastoquinol
- PSII
photosystem II
- QB
the secondary quinone electron acceptor in PSII
- QC
the third plastoquinone-binding site in PSII.
Abbreviations
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Summary
Keywords
photosynthesis, photosystem II, cytochrome b559, site-directed mutagenesis, photoprotection, photoinhibition
Citation
Chiu Y-F and Chu H-A (2022) New Structural and Mechanistic Insights Into Functional Roles of Cytochrome b559 in Photosystem II. Front. Plant Sci. 13:914922. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.914922
Received
07 April 2022
Accepted
27 April 2022
Published
08 June 2022
Volume
13 - 2022
Edited by
Harvey J. M. Hou, Alabama State University, United States
Reviewed by
Alain Boussac, UMR9198 Institut de Biologie Intégrative de la Cellule (I2BC), France; Gary Brudvig, Yale University, United States
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© 2022 Chiu and Chu.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Hsiu-An Chu Chuha@gate.sinica.edu.tw
This article was submitted to Plant Physiology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Plant Science
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