2026-03-10 ワシントン州立大学(WSU)
<関連情報>
- https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2026/03/10/new-study-sheds-light-on-protein-landscape-crucial-for-plant-life/
- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeb2410
植物葉緑体の光合成膜におけるタンパク質ランドスケープの設計原理の解明 Unraveling design principles of protein landscapes in photosynthetic membranes in plant chloroplasts
Ashraf Mohamed, Yuval Garty, Hui Min Olivia Oung, Sujith Puthiyaveetil, […] , and Doran I. G. B. Raccah
Science Advances Published:11 Feb 2026
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aeb2410

Abstract
The supramolecular organization of proteins within photosynthetic membranes is crucial for energy conversion in plants. Here, we introduce an analytical and computational pipeline that integrates high-resolution cryo–scanning electron microscopy, biochemical quantification, advanced Monte Carlo computer simulations, and statistical methods to elucidate the elusive protein landscapes of grana membranes in intact Arabidopsis leaves. Our integrated analysis challenges the prevailing view that particles on the exoplasmic fracture faces in freeze-fracture samples represent photosystem II exclusively. Instead, these particles also include cytochrome b6f complexes. Furthermore, our steric clash analysis demonstrates that stacked membranes contain a mixture of larger PSII supercomplexes (C2S2M2 and C2S2) in addition to a smaller complex (C2). This suggests that in vivo PSII supercomplexes exist in an equilibrium distribution of differing sizes. Furthermore, we discovered that, although size exclusion effects govern the global protein arrangement, local packing exhibits orientational order indicative of lateral attractive protein-protein interactions.


