Proteomic analysis of the phycobiliprotein antenna of the cryptophyte alga Guillardia theta cultured under different light intensities.

ABSTRACT: Plants and algae have developed various light-harvesting mechanisms for optimal delivery of excitation energy to the photosystems. Cryptophyte algae have evolved a novel soluble light-harvesting antenna utilizing phycobilin pigments to complement the membrane-intrinsic Chl a/c-binding LHC antenna. This new antenna consists of the plastid-encoded β-subunit, a relic of the ancestral phycobilisome, and a novel nuclear-encoded α-subunit unique to cryptophytes. Together, these proteins form the active α1β·α2β-tetramer. In all cryptophyte algae investigated so far, the α-subunits have duplicated and diversified into a large gene family. Although there is transcriptional evidence for expression of all these genes, the X-ray structures determined to date suggest that only two of the α-subunit gene

SUBMITTER: Kieselbach T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5784005 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature