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Biomedical subjects

N E Good

Publications and source records attributed to N E Good.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1966

Effect of salts and electron transport on the conformation of isolated chloroplasts. I. Light-scattering and volume changes.

Whole chloroplasts isolated from the leaves of spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) exhibit 2 types of conformational change during electron transport. Amine-uncoupled chloroplasts swell and atebrin-uncoupled chloroplasts shrink. Chloroplasts uncoupled by carbonylcyanide phenylhydrazones and by treatment with ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid do not change their volumes or light-scattering properties during electron transport. Phosphorylating chloroplasts shrink only slightly.The rate and extent of the conformational change parallel the rate of electron transport; both the decrease in turbidity with methylamine and the increase in turbidity with atebrin are rougly proportional to the Hill reaction rate. Consequently the great volume and light-scattering changes which occur in the presence of these uncouplers can be attributed, in part, to the very high rates of uncoupled electron transport. However, for a given rate of electron transport the atebrin-induced scattering increase is very much greater than the increase observed during photophosphorylation.When uncouplers are combined, the carbonylcyanide phenylhydrazone effect (no change) supercedes both the methylamine effect (swelling) and the atebrin effect (shrinking). The methylamine effect supercedes the atebrin (shrinking) and ethylenediamine tetracetic acid (no change) effects. The atebrin effect supercedes the ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid effect. A similar hierarchy of effects is observed with regard to the rate of the uncoupled electron transport.These light-scattering changes of whole chloroplasts reflect similar changes which occur in very small digitonin particles of chloroplasts. Therefore one must look among chloroplast substructures for the basic mechanism of swelling and shrinking.Many salts (including methylamine hydrochloride) cause the chloroplasts to shrink. This phenomenon is not osmotic since comparable osmolarities of sucrose are without effect. Magnesium chloride and calcium chloride are most effective but all salts tested gave major volume decrease when less than 0.05 m. The salt-shrunken chloroplasts show greater light-scattering changes during electron transport than do low-salt chloroplasts.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1966

Effect of Salts and Electron Transport on the Conformation of Isolated Chloroplasts. II. Electron Microscopy.

Spinach chloroplasts isolated in media containing salts and the rare chloroplasts which are still within their envelopes alike retain grana similar to those seen in chloroplasts in situ.Chloroplasts isolated in low-salt media lose their grana without losing any chlorophyll. These grana-free chloroplasts are considerably swollen and consist almost entirely of continuous sheets of paired-membrane structures. These double structures, the lamellae, are only loosely held together, primarily at the edges, by tenuous material which does not react with permanganate.Addition of salts (methylamine hydrochloride, NaCl, MgCl(2)) to the grana-free low-salt chloroplasts provide strong interlamellar attractions. These attractions result in a stacking of the lamellae which is sometimes almost random but sometimes results in regular structures indistinguishable from the original grana.The phosphorylation-uncoupler atebrin causes further swelling of the chloroplasts in the absence of electron transport by increasing the space between the paired membranes of the lamellae.The rapid electron transport (Hill reaction) made possible by atebrin-uncoupling is associated with a great decrease in chloroplast volume. This decrease results from a collapsing together of the widely separated lamellar membrane pairs. The pairs approach each other so closely that they usually appear as a single membrane when viewed with the electron microscope. The much slower electron transport which occurs in the absence of uncouplers is associated with a similar but smaller decrease in the space between the lamellar membrane pairs.Chloroplasts swell during the rapid electron transport made possible by the phosphorylation-uncoupler methylamine. This swelling is accompanied by a degree of membrane distortion which precludes an interpretation of the mechanism. As with atebrin-faciliated electron transport, obviously paired membranes disappear but it is not yet clear whether this is by association or dissociation of the pairs.

Journal Article↗