Enhancement studies on algae and isolated chloroplasts. Part II. Enhancement of oxygen evolution in intact chloroplasts.

ABSTRACT

Intact isolated chloroplasts were shown to exhibit a characteristic three-phase pattern of development of oxygen evolution activity. The first phase, Phase I, appeared to be an equilibration phase in which the isolated chloroplasts adapted to the conditions on the electrode surface. It was characterised by a rapidly increasing rate of oxygen evolution accompanied by decreasing enhancement signals. The second phase, Phase II, was an intermediate phase in which the rate of oxygen evolution was maximal and no enhancement was observed. In the last phase, Phase III, the rate of oxygen fell again, normal enhancement was still missing, but the samples appeared to undergo slow adaptive changes closely related to the State I-State II changes previously reported for whole cell systems. The concentrations of Mg2+ within the chloroplast were shown to play an important role in the control of the development of both the oxygen evolution and enhancement signals. It was shown how these signals could be explained in terms of a model that was consistent with that developed in Part I of this investigation to account for the variability of enhancement of the alga Chlorella pyrenoidosa.