Ferredoxin-linked chloroplast enzymes. Progress report

This report summarizes research on ferredoxin:NADP{sup +} oxidoreductase and ferredoxin:thioredoxin reductase. One of the primary goals of the original proposal was to map the ferredoxin-binding sites on three soluble enzymes that are located in spinach chloroplasts and utilize ferredoxin as an electron donor:Ferredoxin:NADP{sup +} oxidoreductase (FNR); ferredoxin:thioredoxin reductase (FTR) and glutamate synthase. As the availability of amino acid sequences for the enzymes are important in such studies, it was proposed that the amino acid sequence of glutamate synthase be determined. The amino acid sequences of FNR, FTR and ferredoxin are already known. An aim related to elucidating the binding sites on these enzymes for ferredoxin was to determine whether there is a common site on ferredoxin involved in binding to all of these ferredoxin-dependent chloroplast enzymes and, if so, to map it. One additional aim was to characterize thioredoxin binding by FTR and determine whether the same site on FTR is involved in binding both ferredoxin and thioredoxin. Considerable progress has been made on most of these original projects, although work conducted on FTR is still in its preliminary stages