Lipid dependence of diadinoxanthin solubilization and de-epoxidation in artificial membrane systems resembling the lipid composition of the natural thylakoid membrane

In the present study, the solubility and enzymatic de-epoxidation of diadinoxanthin (Ddx) was investigated in three different artificial membrane systems: (1) Unilamellar liposomes composed of different concentrations of the bilayer forming lipid phosphatidylcholine (PC) and the inverted hexagonal phase (HII phase) forming lipid monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG), (2) liposomes composed of PC and the HII phase forming lipid phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), and (3) an artificial membrane system composed of digalactosyldiacylglycerol (DGDG) and MGDG, which resembles the lipid composition of the natural thylakoid membrane. Our results show that Ddx de-epoxidation strongly depends on the concentration of the inverted hexagonal phase forming lipids MGDG or PE in the liposomes composed of PC or DGDG, thus indicating that the presence of inverted hexagonal structures is essential for Ddx de-epoxidation. The difference observed for the solubilization of Ddx in HII phase forming lipids compared with bilayer forming lipids indicates that Ddx is not equally distributed in the liposomes composed of different concentrations of bilayer versus non-bilayer lipids. In artificial membranes with a high percentage of bilayer lipids, a large part of Ddx is located in the membrane bilayer. In membranes composed of equal proportions of bilayer and HII phase forming lipids, the majority of the Ddx molecules is located in the inverted hexagonal structures. The significance of the pigment distribution and the three-dimensional structure of the HII phase for the de-epoxidation reaction is discussed, and a possible scenario for the lipid dependence of Ddx (and violaxanthin) de-epoxidation in the native thylakoid membrane is proposed.