Abstract
Potassium ions and amino acids were found to leak from the cytoplasm to the outer medium when the blue-green alga, Anacystis nidulans, was exposed to the chilling temperatures. The leakage was marked below the critical temperature regions, the midpoint values for which were around 5 and 14 C in cells grown at 28 and 38 C, respectively. These temperature regions coincided with those critical for the susceptibility of the photosynthetic activities and the carotenoid absorption spectrum previously studied (Ono TA, N Murata 1981 Plant Physiol 67: 176-181).Potassium and magnesium ions in the cell suspension medium protected the algal cells from the chilling-induced damage of the Hill reaction with 1,4-benzoquinone. The activity of the Hill reaction which had been diminished by the first chilling treatment in a low salt medium was restored by the second chilling treatment of a high salt medium. The chilling susceptibility of the Hill reaction could be attributed to the leakage of cations from the cytoplasm due to increased permeability of the cytoplasmic membrane at the chilling temperatures.A mechanism is proposed to interpret the chilling susceptibility of A. nidulans: (a) at chilling temperatures, the bilayer lipids of the cytoplasmic membrane are in the phase separation state; (b) ions and solutes having low molecular weights leak from the cytoplasm to the outer medium when the lipids of the cytoplasmic membrane are in the phase separation state; (c) decreases in the intracellular concentrations of ions and solutes degrade the physiological activities of the cells.