Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access originally published online on August 24, 2005
Plant and Cell Physiology 2005 46(11):1766-1778; doi:10.1093/pcp/pci189
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Glycoengineering of Cyanobacterial Thylakoid Membranes for Future Studies on the Role of Glycolipids in Photosynthesis
1 Biozentrum Klein Flottbek, University of Hamburg, Ohnhorststr. 18, 22609 Hamburg, Germany
2 Department of Immunochemistry and Biochemical Microbiology, Research Center Borstel, Leibniz-Center for Medicine and Biosciences, Parkalle 1-40, 23845 Borstel, Germany
* Corresponding author: E-mail, warnecke{at}botanik.uni-hamburg.de; Fax, +49-40-42816-254.
The lipid composition of thylakoid membranes is conserved from cyanobacteria to angiosperms. The predominating components are monogalactosyl- and digalactosyldiacylglycerol. In cyanobacteria, thylakoid membrane biosynthesis starts with the formation of monoglucosyldiacylglycerol which is C4-epimerized to the corresponding galactolipid, whereas in plastids monogalactosyldiacylglycerol is formed at the beginning. This suggests that galactolipids have specific functions in thylakoids. We wanted to investigate whether galactolipids can be replaced by glycosyldiacylglycerols with headgroups differing in their epimeric and anomeric details as well as the attachment point of the terminal hexose in diglycosyldiacylglycerols. For this purpose putative glycosyltransferase sequences were identified in databases to be used for functional expression in various host organisms. From 18 newly identified sequences, four turned out to encode glycosyltransferases catalyzing final steps in glycolipid biosynthesis: two 
-glucosyltransferases, one ß-galactosyltransferase and one ß-glucosyltransferase. Their functional annotation was based on detailed structural characterization of the new glycolipids formed in the transformant hosts as well as on in vitro enzymatic assays. The expression of -glucosyltransferases in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus resulted in the accumulation of the new -galactosyldiacylglycerol which is ascribed to epimerization of the corresponding glucolipid. The expression of the ß-glucosyltransferase led to a high proportion of new ß-glucosyl-(1
6)-ß-galactosyldiacylglycerol almost entirely replacing the native digalactosyldiacylglycerol. These results demonstrate that modifications of the glycolipid pattern in thylakoids are possible.
(Received May 11, 2005; Accepted August 13, 2005)
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