Water soluble spinach chloroplast chlorophyll-protein complexes prepared without added detergents or organic solvents

Two water soluble chlorophyll-protein complexes were obtained from spinach chloroplast thylakoids without the aid of added detergents or organic solvents. One complex contained the pigments chlorophyll a & b and the quinones vitamin K 1, tocopherolquinone, and a plastoquinone while the other contained in addition a second plastoquinone and the pigments lutein, violaxanth and neoxanthin. Both complexes showed a tendency to aggregate during purification; however, a crude mixture of these two complexes had an average apparent sedimentation coefficient (S 20,w) of 5.6 S. The chlorophyll absorption spectrum of the combined complexes was very similar to that of the chlorophylls in vivo . The red absorption maximum for chlorophyll a was at 679 mμ and that for chlorophyll b was at 652 mμ.