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The Arabidopsis Chloroplastic NifU-Like Protein CnfU, Which Can Act as an Iron-Sulfur Cluster Scaffold Protein, Is Required for Biogenesis of Ferredoxin and Photosystem I

^a Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University, Suita, 565-0871, Japan
^b Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research, Osaka University, Ibaraki, 567-0047, Japan
^c Department of Biology, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, 560-0043, Japan

¹ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail nakai{at}protein.osaka-u.ac.jp; fax 81-6-6879-8613.

The biosynthesis of iron-sulfur clusters is a highly regulated process involving several proteins. Among them, so-called scaffold proteins play pivotal roles in both the assembly and delivery of iron-sulfur clusters. Here, we report the identification of two chloroplast-localized NifU-like proteins, AtCnfU-V and AtCnfU-IVb, from Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) with high sequence similarity to a cyanobacterial NifU-like protein that was proposed to serve as a molecular scaffold. AtCnfU-V is constitutively expressed in several tissues of Arabidopsis, whereas the expression of AtCnfU-IVb is prominent in the aerial parts. Mutant Arabidopsis lacking AtCnfU-V exhibited a dwarf phenotype with faint pale-green leaves and had drastically impaired photosystem I accumulation. Chloroplasts in the mutants also showed a decrease in both the amount of ferredoxin, a major electron carrier of the stroma that contains a [2Fe-2S] cluster, and in the in vitro activity of iron-sulfur cluster insertion into apo-ferredoxin. When expressed in Escherichia coli cells, AtCnfU-V formed a homodimer carrying a [2Fe-2S]-like cluster, and this cluster could be transferred to apo-ferredoxin in vitro to form holo-ferredoxin. We propose that AtCnfU has an important function as a molecular scaffold for iron-sulfur cluster biosynthesis in chloroplasts and thereby is required for biogenesis of ferredoxin and photosystem I.

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