The initial step of oxygenic photosynthesis is the thermodynamically challenging extraction of electrons from water and the release of molecular oxygen. This light-driven process, which is the basis for most life on Earth, is catalyzed by photosystem II (PSII) within the thylakoid membrane of photosynthetic organisms. The biogenesis of PSII requires a controlled step-wise assembly process of which the early steps are considered to be highly conserved between plants and their cyanobacterial progenitors. This assembly process involves auxiliary proteins, which are likewise conserved. In the present work, we used Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) as a model to show that in plants, a eukaryote-exclusive assembly factor facilitates the early assembly step, during which the intrinsic antenna protein CP47 becomes associated with the PSII reaction center (RC) to form the RC47 intermediate. This factor, which we named DECREASED ELECTRON TRANSPORT AT PSII (DEAP2), works in concert with the conserved PHOTOSYNTHESIS AFFECTED MUTANT 68 (PAM68) assembly factor. The deap2 and pam68 mutants showed similar defects in PSII accumulation and assembly of the RC47 intermediate. The combined lack of both proteins resulted in a loss of functional PSII and the inability of plants to grow photoautotrophically on the soil. While overexpression of DEAP2 partially rescued the pam68 PSII accumulation phenotype, this effect was not reciprocal. DEAP2 accumulated at 20-fold higher levels than PAM68, together suggesting that both proteins have distinct functions. In summary, our results uncover eukaryotic adjustments to the PSII assembly process, which involve the addition of DEAP2 for the rapid progression from RC to RC47.
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of American Society of Plant Biologists.