Constitutive expression of pea Lhcb 1-2 in tobacco affects plant development, morphology and photosynthetic capacity.

Lhcb1-2 from pea was constitutively expressed in transgenic tobacco plants and assessed for functional impact. The successful assembly of the encoded proteins into LHCII trimers was confirmed by electrospray tandem mass spectrometry. Constitutive production of LHCb1-2 led to increased number of thylakoid membranes per chloroplast, increased grana stacking, higher chloroplast numbers per palisade cell and increased photosynthetic capacity at low irradiance, both on a chlorophyll and leaf area basis.