Photoinhibition occurs continuously when plants or cyanobacteria are exposed to light, and the photosynthesizing organism must, therefore, continuously repair the damage. The PSII repair cycle, occurring in chloroplasts and in cyanobacteria, consists of degradation and synthesis of the D1 protein of the PSII reaction centre, followed by activation of the reaction center. Due to the rapid repair, most PSII reaction centers are not photoinhibited even if a plant is grown in strong light. However, environmental stresses, for example, extreme temperatures, salinity, and drought, limit the supply of carbon dioxide for use in carbon fixation, which decreases the rate of repair of PSII.
In photoinhibition studies, repair is often stopped by applying an antibiotic (lincomycin or chloramphenicol) to plants or cyanobacteria, which blocks protein synthesis in the chloroplast. Protein synthesis occurs only in an intact sample, so lincomycin is not needed when photoinhibition is measured from isolated membranes. The repair cycle of PSII recirculates other subunits of PSII (except for the D1 protein) from the inhibited unit to the repaired one.