In Rhodobacter capsulatus B10 (wild type) both a subunits of the light-harvesting complexes are phosphorylated during photosynthetic membrane synthesis. During the process of insertion of these polypeptides, there is a dephosphorylation resulting in intracytoplasmic membranes in which no radioactive phosphate could be detected. Moreover, we show that their phosphate-specific contents depends on the growth conditions, the highest being observed under oxic conditions. When photosynthetic membrane synthesis was induced under light and anaerobiosis, a decrease in the phosphate-specific contents ensued. An inverse relationship exists between specific phosphorylation levels and the degree of membrane differentiation. The phosphorylation is thus a transient phenomenon characteristic of the photosynthetic membrane synthesis governed by the external redox conditions constituting an additional post-transcriptional level of regulation.