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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 51(7)

Acclimation mechanism of microalgal photosynthetic apparatus under low atmospheric pressures – new astrobiological perspectives in a Mars-like atmosphere

Charalampia-Stavroula Gritsi A , Evangelos Sarmas A , Vangelis Daskalakis https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8870-0850 B and Kiriakos Kotzabasis https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1002-6365 A *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Biology, University of Crete, Voutes University Campus, Heraklion, Crete GR 70013, Greece.

B Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Patras, Patras GR 26504, Greece.

* Correspondence to: kotzab@uoc.gr

Handling Editor: Suleyman Allakhverdiev

Functional Plant Biology 51, FP24058 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP24058
Submitted: 8 March 2024  Accepted: 25 May 2024  Published: 20 June 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing

Abstract

This study reveals a new acclimation mechanism of the eukaryotic unicellular green alga Chlorella vulgaris in terms of the effect of varying atmospheric pressures on the structure and function of its photosynthetic apparatus using fluorescence induction measurements (JIP-test). The results indicate that low (400 mbar) and extreme low (<10 mbar) atmospheric pressure decreases the density and thus increases the fluidity of the thylakoid membrane, possibly facilitating plastoquinone (PQ) movement within the membrane and resulting in enhanced photosynthetic electron flow and photochemical quenching. Molecular dynamic simulations of different light harvesting complexes within thylakoid membrane models confirm this mechanism and reveal the associated atomic scale details. The exposure of microalga to an extremely low pressure (<10 mbar) in a 100% CO2 atmosphere (simulating the Mars atmosphere), reveals that the impact of extremely low atmospheric pressure on PQ mobility within the photosynthetic membrane, coupled with the low density of an almost 100% CO2 Mars-like atmosphere, results to a similar photosynthetic efficiency to that on Earth. These findings pave the way for the identification of novel functional acclimation mechanisms of microalgae to extreme environments that are vastly distinct from those found on Earth.

Keywords: acclimation, astrobiology, atmospheric composition, atmospheric pressure, extremophiles, microalgae, molecular dynamics, photosynthesis.

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