The fine structure of Rhodospirillum rubrum grown under a series of defined conditions has been examined in thin sections prepared by the methods of Ryter and Kellenberger. In cells grown anaerobically at different light intensities, the abundance of 500 A membrane-bounded vesicles in the cytoplasm is inversely related to light intensity, and directly related to cellular chlorophyll content. When the chlorophyll content of the cell is low, the vesicles are exclusively peripheral in location; they extend more deeply into the cytoplasm when the chlorophyll content is high. Typical vesicles also occur, though rarely, in cells grown aerobically in the dark, which have a negligible chlorophyll content. When synthesis of the photosynthetic pigment system is induced in a population of aerobically grown cells by incubation under semianaerobic conditions in the dark, the vesicles become increasingly abundant with increasing cellular chlorophyll content, and the cells eventually acquire the cytoplasmic structure that is characteristic of cells growing anaerobically at a high light intensity. Poststaining with lead hydroxide reveals that the membranes surrounding the 500 A vesicles are indistinguishable in structure from the cytoplasmic membrane, and continuous with it in some areas of the sections. The bearing of these observations on current notions concerning the organization of the bacterial photosynthetic apparatus is discussed.
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February 01 1963
THE FINE STRUCTURE OF RHODOSPIRILLUM RUBRUM
Germaine Cohen-Bazire,
Germaine Cohen-Bazire
From the Department of Bacteriology and the Electron Microscope Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley
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Riyo Kunisawa
Riyo Kunisawa
From the Department of Bacteriology and the Electron Microscope Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley
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Germaine Cohen-Bazire
From the Department of Bacteriology and the Electron Microscope Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley
Riyo Kunisawa
From the Department of Bacteriology and the Electron Microscope Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley
Received:
August 24 1962
Online ISSN: 1540-8140
Print ISSN: 0021-9525
Copyright, 1963, by The Rockefeller Institute Press
1963
J Cell Biol (1963) 16 (2): 401–419.
Article history
Received:
August 24 1962
Citation
Germaine Cohen-Bazire, Riyo Kunisawa; THE FINE STRUCTURE OF RHODOSPIRILLUM RUBRUM . J Cell Biol 1 February 1963; 16 (2): 401–419. doi: https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.16.2.401
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