A Specific Single Nucleotide Polymorphism in the ATP Synthase Gene Significantly Improves Environmental Stress Tolerance of Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942

Abstract

In response to a broad range of habitats and environmental stresses, cyanobacteria have evolved various effective acclimation strategies, which will be helpful for improving the stress tolerances of photosynthetic organisms, including higher plants. <i>Synechococcus elongatus</i> UTEX 2973 and PCC 7942 possess genomes that are 99.8% identical but exhibit significant differences in cell growth and stress tolerance. In this study, we found that a single amino acid substitution at F_oF₁ ATP synthase subunit α (AtpA), C252Y, is the primary contributor to the improved stress tolerance of <i>S. elongatus</i> UTEX 2973. Site-saturation mutagenesis experiments showed that point mutations of cysteine 252 to any of the four conjugated amino acids could significantly improve the stress tolerance of <i>S. elongatus</i> PCC 7942. We further confirmed that the C252Y mutation increases AtpA protein levels, intracellular ATP synthase activity, intracellular ATP abundance, transcription of <i>psbA</i> genes (especially <i>psbA2</i>), photosystem II activity, and glycogen accumulation in <i>S. elongatus</i> PCC 7942. This work highlights the importance of AtpA in improving the stress tolerance of cyanobacteria and provides insight into how cyanobacteria evolve via point mutations in the face of environmental selection pressures.<b>IMPORTANCE</b> Two closely related <i>Synechococcus</i> strains showed significantly different tolerances to high light and high temperature but limited genomic differences, providing us opportunities to identify key genes responsible for stress acclimation by a gene complementation approach. In this study, we confirmed that a single point mutation in the α subunit of F_oF₁ ATP synthase (AtpA) contributes mainly to the improved stress tolerance of <i>Synechococcus elongatus</i> UTEX 2973. The point mutation of AtpA, the important ATP-generating complex of photosynthesis, increases AtpA protein levels, intracellular ATP synthase activity, and ATP concentrations under heat stress, as well as photosystem II activity. This work proves the importance of ATP synthase in cyanobacterial stress acclimation and provides a good target for future improvement of cyanobacterial stress tolerance by metabolic engineering.