Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Isolation and Characterization of Intact Phycobilisome in Cyanobacteria
Published on: November 10, 2021
Keeping in touch with PII: PII-interacting proteins in unicellular cyanobacteria
1Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0032 Japan.
Abstract:
PII protein is conserved among bacteria, archaea and plants, and is thought to function as a carbon/nitrogen balance sensor in these organisms. Recently, several proteins that specifically interact with PII, including a PII phosphatase (PphA), an amino acid biosynthetic enzyme (NAGK), a probable membrane channel (PamA) and a small protein (PipX) that also interacts with the nitrogen transcription factor NtcA, have been identified in the unicellular cyanobacteria Synechococcus sp. PCC 7942 and Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. These findings and subsequent analyses have suggested that PII protein controls carbon and nitrogen metabolism at the gene expression level as well as at the protein activity level. In this review, the functions of PII are envisaged based on functional analyses of the PII-interacting proteins identified in cyanobacteria.
Related Concept Videos
Bacterial Phylum Cyanobacteria
Protein-protein Interfaces
Phosphoinositides and PIPs
Different phosphoinositides are synthesized and recruited on the cytosolic face of the plasma membrane. The localization of specific phosphoinositides concentrated in separate membrane...
Prokaryotic Cells
Prokaryotic Cells
Like eukaryotic cells, all prokaryotic cells are surrounded by a plasma membrane, have genetic material in the form of single, circular DNA, a cytoplasm that fills the interior of the cell, and ribosomes that synthesize proteins.
Bacterial Signaling
