Exploring the structural diversity and evolution of the D1 subunit of photosystem II using AlphaFold and Foldtree
Author(s)
Kim, Tom Dongmin
Pretorius, Daniella
Murray, James W
Cardona, Tanai
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Although our knowledge of photosystem II has expanded to include time-resolved atomic details, the diversity of experimental structures of the enzyme remains limited. Recent advances in protein structure prediction with AlphaFold offer a promising approach to fill this gap in structural diversity in non-model systems. This study used AlphaFold to predict the structures of the D1 protein, the core subunit of photosystem II, across a broad range of photosynthetic organisms. The prediction produced high-confidence structures, and structural alignment analyses highlighted conserved regions across the different D1 groups, which were in line with high pLDDT scoring regions. In contrast, varying pLDDT in the DE loop and terminal regions appears to correlate with different degrees of structural flexibility or disorder. Subsequent structural phylogenetic analysis using Foldtree provided a tree that is in good agreement with previous sequence-based studies. Moreover, the phylogeny supports a parsimonious scenario in which far-red D1 and D1INT evolved from an ancestral form of G4 D1. This work demonstrates the potential of AlphaFold and Foldtree to study the molecular evolution of photosynthesis.
Date Issued
2025-05-01
Date Acceptance
2025-04-29
Citation
Physiologia Plantarum, 2025, 177 (3)
ISSN
0031-9317
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
e70284
Journal / Book Title
Physiologia Plantarum
Volume
177
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Author(s). Physiologia Plantarum published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Scandinavian Plant Physiology Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Subjects
Photosystem II Protein Complex
Evolution, Molecular
Phylogeny
Photosynthesis
Models, Molecular
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e70284
Date Publish Online
2025-05-22