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Updated: Jul 15, 2026

Isolation and Characterization of Intact Phycobilisome in Cyanobacteria
Published on: November 10, 2021
Biosynthesis of open-chain tetrapyrroles in Prochlorococcus marinus
Thorben Dammeyer1, Kristin Michaelsen, Nicole Frankenberg-Dinkel
1Institute for Microbiology, Technical University Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany.
Abstract:
Members of the genus Prochlorococcus belong to the most abundant phytoplankton on earth. In contrast to other cyanobacteria, Prochlorococcus is characterized by divinyl-chlorophyll containing light-harvesting complexes and the lack of phycobilisomes. Despite the lack of phycobilisomes, all sequenced genomes of Prochlorococcus possess genes that putatively encode enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of open-chain tetrapyrrole molecules. Here, biochemical evidence is presented indicating that high-light- and low-light-adapted Prochlorococcus ecotypes possess genes encoding functional enzymes for the biosynthesis of open-chain tetrapyrrole molecules. Experiments on recombinant protein as well as through complementation studies of a cyanobacterial insertion mutant revealed the functionality of the bilin reductases investigated.
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