Coupling of Chlorophyll Metabolism with Submembrane Chloroplast Particles, Isolated with Digitonin and Gel Electrophoresis

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Abstract
An unusual set of submembrane particles is obtained from digitonin-treated barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) chloroplasts as 5 gel-electrophoretic zones. Four are photochemically active; the most mobile 5th zone has essential traits of the light-harvesting complexes. All particles contain chlorophyll-protein complexes and represent an intermediate level of membrane organization. When isolated from plants fed .delta.-aminolevulinate in the dark, the 5th zone is characterized by a high level of protochlorophyllide, which is present to a lesser extent in all other zones. When [14C]aminolevulinate was fed in the dark, followed by exposing the plants to light, the same pattern of the distribution was observed for [14C]chlorophyll a. Particles of all types are involved in chlorophyll formation and the 5th zone is the most distinct in this respect. Its material seems to originate from the most intensely developing areas of the metabolically heterogeneous chloroplast membrane system.