Assembly and repair of photosystem II (Invited Review)

Considerable attention has been focused on how photosystem II (PSII) is assembled in vivo and how it is repaired following irreversible damage by visible light (so-called photoinhibition). Nixon et al. (pp. 1–16) summarize recent results on the assembly and repair of PSII in cyanobacteria, which are excellent model organisms to study higher plant photosynthesis. A model is proposed in Synechocystis in which the damaged D1 sub-unit is removed by a hetero-oligomeric complex, and it is postulated that a similar mechanism of D1 degradation also operates in chloroplasts.