The State of Manganese in the Photosynthetic Apparatus. Ii. X-Ray Absorption Edge Studies on Manganese in Photosynthetic Membranes

X-ray absorption spectra at the Manganese K-edge are presented for spinach chloroplasts, and chloroplasts which have been Tris-treated and hence unable to evolve oxygen. A significant change in the electronic environment of manganese is observed and is attributed to the release of manganese from the thylakoid membranes with a concomitant change in oxidation state. A correlation of the K-edge energy, defined as the energy at the first inflection point, with coordination charge has been established for a number of manganese compounds of known structure and oxidation state. Comparison of the manganese K-edge energies of the chloroplast samples with the reference compounds places the average oxidation state of the chloroplasts between +2 and +3. Using the edge spectra for Tris-treated membranes which were osmotically shocked to remove the released manganese, difference edge spectra were synthesized to approximate the active pool of manganese. Coordination charge predictions for this fraction are consistent with an average resting oxidation state higher than +2. The shape at the edge is also indicative of heterogeneity of the manganese site, of low symmetry, or both

Is Mn-Bound Substrate Water Protonated in the S2 State of Photosystem II?

In spite of great progress in resolving the geometric structure of the water-splitting Mn4OxCa cluster in photosystem II, the binding sites and modes of the two substrate water molecules are still insufficiently characterized. While time-resolved membrane-inlet mass spectrometry measurements indicate that both substrate water molecules are bound to the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) in the S2 and S3 states (Hendry and Wydrzynski in Biochemistry 41:13328–13334, 2002), it is not known (1) if they are both Mn-bound, (2) if they are terminal or bridging ligands, and (3) in what protonation state they are bound in the different oxidation states Si (i = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4) of the OEC. By employing 17O hyperfine sublevel correlation (HYSCORE) spectroscopy we recently demonstrated that in the S2 state there is only one (type of) Mn-bound oxygen that is water exchangeable. We therefore tentatively identified this oxygen as one substrate ‘water’ molecule, and on the basis of the finding that it has a hyperfine interaction of about 10 MHz with the electron spin of the Mn4OxCa cluster, we suggest that it is bound as a Mn–O–Mn bridge within a bis-μ2 oxo-bridged unit (Su et al. in J Am Chem Soc 130:786–787, 2008). Employing pulse electron paramagnetic resonance, 1H/2H Mims electron-nuclear double resonance and 2H-HYSCORE spectroscopies together with 1H/2H-exchange here, we test this hypothesis by probing the protonation state of this exchangeable oxygen. We conclude that this oxygen is fully deprotonated. This result is discussed in the light of earlier reports in the literature

S-S-3 state of the water oxidase in photosystem II†

The effect of the reductant hydrazine on the flash-induced oxygen oscillation patterns of spinach thylakoids was used to characterize a new super-reduced redox state of the water oxidase in photosystem II. The formation of a discrete S-3 state is evident from the shift of the first maximum of oxygen evolution from the 3rd flash through the 5th flash to the 7th flash during a 90 min incubation of dark-adapted thylakoids with 10 mM hydrazine sulfate at pH 6.8 on ice. A distinct period four oscillation with further maxima on the 11th and 15th flashes is still observed at this stage of the incubation. The data analysis within the framework of an extended Kok model reveals that a S-3 state population of almost 50% can be achieved by this treatment. A prolonged incubation of the S-3 sample with 10 mM hydrazine (and even 100 mM) does not lead to a further shift of the first maximum toward the 9th flash that could reflect the formation of the S-5 state. Instead, a slow oxidation of S-3 to S-2 takes place by an as yet unidentified electron acceptor. A consistent simulation of all the measured oxygen oscillation patterns of this study could, however, only be achieved by including the formal redox states S-4 and S-5 in the fits (S-4 + S-5 up to 35%). The implications of these findings for the oxidation states of the manganese in the tetranuclear cluster of the water oxidase are discussed