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Environmental and Stress Physiology

Mode of Action of the Massively Accumulated -Carotene of Dunaliella bardawil in Protecting the Alga against Damage by Excess Irradiation

National Institute of Oceanography, Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, Tel-Shikmona, P.O.B. 8030, Haifa 31080, Israel, Department of Biochemistry, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

When grown under defined conditions Dunaliella bardawil accumulates a high concentration of -carotene, which is composed primarily of two isomers, all-trans and 9-cis -carotene. The high -carotene alga is substantially resistant to photoinhibition of photosynthetic oxygen evolution when compared with low -carotene D. bardawil or with Dunaliella salina which is incapable of accumulating -carotene. Protection against photoinhibition in the high -carotene D. bardawil is very strong when blue light is used as the photoinhibitory agent, intermediate with white light, and nonexistent with red light. These observations suggest that the massively accumulated -carotene in D. bardawil protects the alga against damage by high irradiation by screening through absorption of the blue region of the spectrum. Irradiation of D. bardawil by high intensity blue light results in the following temporal sequence of events: photoinhibition of oxygen evolution, photodestruction of 9-cis -carotene, photodestruction of all-trans -carotene, photodestruction of chlorophyll and cell death.

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