The distribution of divinyl chlorophylls a and b and the presence of ferredoxin-NADP D reductase in Prochlorococcus marinus MIT9313 thylakoid membranes Jes us Barrera-Rojas a , Luis Gonzalez de la Vara b , Emmanuel Ríos-Castro c , Lourdes E. Leyva-Castillo a , Carlos Gomez-Lojero a, ∗ a Departamento de Bioquímica, Centro de Investigacion y Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Mexico b Unidad Irapuato, Centro de Investigacion y Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Mexico c y LaNSE, Centro de Investigacion y Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Mexico ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: cgomez@cinvestav.mx (C. Gomez-Lojero). Abstract The marine unicellular green cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus marinus MIT9313 belongs to the most abundant and photosynthetically productive genus of cyanobacteria in the oceans. This monophyletic genus use divinyl chlorophyll a (Chl a 2 ) and b (Chl b 2 ) to build the photosystems and the membrane-intrinsic Pcb-type antennae. We used the mild detergent n-dodecyl b D-maltopyranoside to solubilize the thylakoid membranes. Gel electrophoresis and sucrose gradient ultracentrifugation was then used to separate the complexes of the photosynthetic apparatus. The proteins and the pigments were identified by mass spectrometry. Protein complexes were characterized biochemically, and the distribution of Chl a 2 and Chl b 2 was determined. The photosynthetic apparatus was shown as supercomplexes formed by Photosystem II dimers with up to eight PcbB proteins; Photosystem I was present as trimers. A heterogeneous distribution of pigments was shown using sucrose gradient-enriched fractions with ratios of [Chl Received: 21 September 2018 Revised: 22 November 2018 Accepted: 24 December 2018 Cite as: Jesus Barrera-Rojas, Luis Gonzalez de la Vara, Emmanuel Ríos-Castro, Lourdes E. Leyva-Castillo, Carlos Gomez-Lojero. The distribution of divinyl chlorophylls a and b and the presence of ferredoxin- NADP þ reductase in Prochlorococcus marinus MIT9313 thylakoid membranes. Heliyon 4 (2018) e01100. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2018. e01100 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e01100 2405-8440/Ó 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).