This book gathers contributions presented during an In- ternational
meeting organized by the Laboratory of Photobio- logy of the University
of Liege, Belgium, on 8 and 9 August 1983. The general topic of the
discussions was protochlorophyl- lide reduction and greening. Among the
reasons for choosing this topic were the recent advances in the field.
These ad- vances deal with: (1) The characterization of the basic
constituents of the photoenzymatic complex responsible for
protochlorophylli- de reduction. This complex is known to be ternary,
comprising the pigment: protochlorophyllide, NADPH and the enzyme proto-
chlorophyllide oxidoreductase. (2) The discovery of short-lived
intermediates in the photoreduction process, and in particular, the
recent findings resulting from the proqresses of the picosecond and
nanosecond spectrometry. (3) The obtention of new data on the components
of the plastids, on the changes they undergo during the first steps of
greening, and on the distribution of the pigment-protein complexes
between the various substructures of the etioplast. (4) The detection of
early photoactivities apart from protochlorophyllide reduction. These
subjects have cen extensively discussed during the meeting and several
sections of this book are devoted to the presentation of the new data.