Sequestered Proton Domains in Chloroplast Energetics: Resuspending chloroplasts in sucrose or potassium chloride affects their subsequent response to single turnover flash excitation and to ATP formation. This breakthrough observation will be used to determine how and when proton gradients formed as a result of photosynthetic electron transport in chloropasts are used to synthesize ATP and the factors effecting these reactions. Since the chemosmotic theory of ATP synthesis driven by a proton gradient originally postulated by Dr. Peter Mitchell was generally accepted about 15 years ago there has been a controversy between those who claim that under in vivo conditions localized proton domains are involved in the transduction and those who claim that only protons moving between bulk phases are involved both in vivo and in vitro. The results of this research have the potential of settling the the controversy and defining the conditions under which each mechanism holds. Most of the biological energy used by all organisms is based on this reaction. It, therefore, becomes a keytstone of our bioenergetic knowledge.
