D-lactate metabolism in the alga, Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii

1986 
(/sup 14/C)D-lactate rapidly accumulates in Chlamydomonas cells under anaerobic conditions from the sugar-phosphate pools which are labeled during photosynthesis with /sup 14/CO/sub 2/. A soluble D-lactate dehydrogenase (30 ..mu..mol NADH oxidized/h/mg Chl), which functions only in the direction of pyruvate reduction, has been partially purified and characterized. The D-lactate is reoxidized in Chlamydomonas by a mitochondrial membrane-bound dehydrogenase. This enzyme is known in the plant literature as glycolate dehydrogenase, an enzyme of the oxidative photosynthetic carbon (C/sub 2/) cycle. This dehydrogenase may be linked to the mitochondrial electron transport chain, although the direct electron acceptor is unknown. Therefore, D-lactate accumulation may be, in part, due to the shut down of electron transport during anaerobiosis. In vivo chase experiments have shown that the D-lactate turns over rapidly when algal cells, which have been grown with air levels of CO/sub 2/ (0.04%), are returned to aerobic conditions in the light. Such turnover is not observed in cells which had been grown with 1 to 5% CO/sub 2/. Cells grown with high CO/sub 2/ have lower levels of glycolate dehydrogenase activity. They are currently using mutants of Chlamydomonas deficient in mitochondrial respiration to study the role of D-lactate oxidation in these algae.
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