Degen, G.E. orcid.org/0000-0002-0804-4169, Schwarzländer, M. orcid.org/0000-0003-0796-8308 and Johnson, M.P. orcid.org/0000-0002-1663-0205 (2026) Disequilibrium between chloroplast proton motive force and ATP levels in Arabidopsis. Nature Plants. ISSN: 2055-026X
Abstract
Current dogma holds that CO2 fixation by photosynthesis requires additional ATP production via cyclic electron transfer, mediated by two distinct pathways involving the NADH dehydrogenase-like complex (NDH) and proton gradient regulation 5 protein (PGR5), to augment the ATP relative to NADPH produced by linear electron transfer. Here we use the MgATP2− fluorescent biosensor ATeam1.03-nD/nA and find that, while proton motive force in the Arabidopsis pgr5CAS and pgr5 ndho mutants is only 50–75% that of the wild type, chloroplast MgATP2− levels are unchanged. These data demonstrate that disequilibrium exists between the proton motive force and MgATP2− concentration in vivo, indicating that cyclic electron transfer is not required for ATP augmentation.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Authors/Creators: |
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| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2026. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Photosynthesis; Plant sciences |
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
| Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) |
| Date Deposited: | 20 Aug 2026 13:52 |
| Last Modified: | 20 Aug 2026 13:52 |
| Status: | Published online |
| Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41477-026-02374-w |
| Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:244546 |
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