Author(s)

Yanye Ruan^1,2, Xiaoyang Li¹, Yanpeng Wang¹, Siqi Jiang¹, Bo Song³, Zhiyou Guo³, Ao Zhang¹, Qi Qi¹, Lijun Zhang^1,2, Jinjuan Fan^1,2, Yixin Guan⁴, Zhenhai Cui^1,2*, Yanshu Zhu^1,2

¹Biological Science and Technology College, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, China.
²Liaoning Province Research Center of Plant Genetic Engineering Technology, Shenyang, China.
³Test Site of Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, China.
⁴Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China.

Strong light decreases the rate of photosynthesis and assimilates production of crop plants. Plants with different carbon reduction cycles respond differently to strong light stress. However, variation in photoinhibition in leaves with different photosynthetic characteristics in maize is not clear. In this experiment, we used the first leaves (with an incomplete C₄ cycle) and fifth leaves (with a complete C₄ cycle) of maize plants as well as the fifth leaves (C₃ cycle) of tobacco plants as a reference to measure the photosynthetic rate (P_N) and chlorophyll a parameters under strong light stress. During treatment, P_N, the maximal fluorescence (F_m), the maximal quantum yield of PSII photochemistry (F_v/F_m), and the number of active photosystem II (PSII) reaction centers per excited cross-section (RC/CS_m) declined dramatically in all three types of leaves but to different degrees. P_N, F_m, F_v/F_m, and RC/CS_m were less inhibited by strong light in C₄ leaves. The results showed that maize C₄ leaves with higher rates of photosynthesis are more tolerant to strong light stress than incomplete C₄ leaves, and the carbon reduction cycle is more important to photoprotection in C₄ leaves, while state transition is critical in incomplete C₄ leaves.

Fluorescence Transient, Photosystem II (PSII), Photoprotection, Light Stress, C₄ Photosynthesis

Ruan, Y. , Li, X. , Wang, Y. , Jiang, S. , Song, B. , Guo, Z. , Zhang, A. , Qi, Q. , Zhang, L. , Fan, J. , Guan, Y. , Cui, Z. and Zhu, Y. (2017) Photoinhibition of Leaves with Different Photosynthetic Carbon Assimilation Characteristics in Maize (Zea mays). American Journal of Plant Sciences, 8, 328-339. doi: 10.4236/ajps.2017.83023.