IRON-SULFUR CENTERS IN THE PHOTOSYNTHETIC REACTION-CENTER COMPLEX FROM CHLOROBIUM-VIBRIOFORME - DIFFERENCES FROM AND SIMILARITIES TO THE IRON-SULFUR CENTERS IN PHOTOSYSTEM-I

The photosynthetic reaction center complex from the green sulfur bacte rium Chlorobium vibrioforme has been isolated under anaerobic conditio ns. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis reveals polypeptides with apparent molecular masses of 80, 40, 30, 18, 15, and 9 kDa. The 80- and 18-kDa polypeptides are identified as the reaction center polypeptide and the secondary donor cytochrome c(551) encoded by the pscA and pscC genes, respectively. N-terminal amino acid sequen ces identify the 40-kDa polypeptide as the bacteriochlorophyll a-prote in of the baseplate (the Fenna-Matthews-Olson protein) and the 30-kDa polypeptide as the putative 2[4Fe-4S] protein encoded by pscB. Electro n paramagnetic resonance (EPR) analysis shows the presence of an iron- sulfur cluster which is irreversibly photoreduced at 9K. Photoaccumula tion at higher temperature shows the presence of an additional photore duced cluster. The EPR spectra of the two iron-sulfur clusters resembl e those of FA and Fg Of Photosystem I, but also show significantly dif ferent g-values, lineshapes, and temperature and power dependencies. W e suggest that the two centers are designated Center I (with calculate d g-values of 2.085, 1.898, 1.841), and Center II (with calculated g-v alues of 2.083, 1.941, 1.878). The data suggest that Centers I and II are bound to the pscB polypeptide.