The Bioenergetic Description of Light Energy Migration in Photoactive Membranes; Equivalence between the Theory of the Energy Fluxes and the Theory of the Proportion of Pigments Forms to Total Pigments

The energy exchanges between pigments in biological membranes irradiated with light can be described in a number of ways. It is shown in this paper that the theory of the interrelationships between pigment species, as expressed by their proportions to total pigment, which has been used to describe the exchanges between protochlorophyllide and chlorophyllide in irradiated etioplast membranes (Brouers and Sironval, 1978), is equivalent to the theory of the energy exchange fluxes developed by Strasser (1978). Yet, the first of these theories was derived from the analysis of events observed when etiolated leaves are irradiated for the first time, while the second was developed to account for energy transfers from light harvesting pigments to active centres in fully green leaves. The exchanges in green and in etiolated leaves will be shown to have common features, and the connection between the methods of accounting for them will appear.