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Metabolism and Enzymology

Studies on Genetic Male-Sterile Soybeans ¹

V. Effects of Male-Sterility on the Function and Glycerolipid Composition of Chloroplast Thylakoids

United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Plant Stress and Water Conservation Research Unit, Route 3, Box 215, Lubbock, Texas 79401, United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7620, Department of Crop Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7620, Department of Botany, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7620

Soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) germplasm, isogenic except for loci controlling male sterility (ms₁), was utilized to study the effects of reproductive development on certain aspects of photosynthesis. Plants were sampled at various times between flowering (77 days after transplanting) and maturity (147 days after transplanting). During that period photosynthetic rates declined more rapidly in the male-sterile genotypes than male-fertile genotypes; and after 105 days, the sterile genotypes maintained low but relatively constant carbon exchange rates. The decline of leaf photosynthesis in the male-sterile genotype occurred concomitantly with an inhibition of the photosynthetic electron transport chain associated with photosystem II. Changes in photosystem I activities, cytochrome f levels, and chlorophyll a/b ratios per se were not responsible for the decline in whole leaf photosynthesis. These conditions were independent of the source of nitrogen nutrition. Lipid analyses of the thylakoids revealed that a loss of phosphatidylglycerol was highly correlated with the inhibition of photosystem II activity. These results suggested a relation between the decline in leaf carbon exchange and the decline in photosynthetic electron transport activity.