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Channel Rhodopsins01:11

Channel Rhodopsins

Most organisms use photoreceptors to sense and respond to light. Examples of photoreceptors include bacteriorhodopsins and bacteriophytochromes in some bacteria, phytochromes in plants, and rhodopsins in the photoreceptor cells of the vertebral retina. The light-sensitive property of these receptors is because of the bound chromophores, such as bilin in the phytochromes and retinal in the rhodopsins.
Rhodopsins belong to the family of cell surface proteins called G-protein coupled receptors,...
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Reaction centers are pigment-protein complexes that initiate energy conversion from photons to chemical entities. Therefore, photochemical reaction center is a more appropriate term that describes these complexes. The Nobel laureates Robert Emerson and William Arnold provided the first experimental evidence of photochemical reaction centers by demonstrating the participation of nearly 2,500 chlorophyll molecules for the release of just one molecule of oxygen. Despite thousands of photosynthetic...
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Preparation of Living Isolated Vertebrate Photoreceptor Cells for Fluorescence Imaging
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Published on: June 22, 2011

Bacterial bilin- and flavin-binding photoreceptors.

A Losi1, W Gärtner

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Parma, Italy.

Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences : Official Journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology
|October 11, 2008
PubMed
Summary

About a quarter of bacteria possess red and blue light sensing photoreceptors, including phytochromes and cryptochromes. These modular systems, switchable by light, integrate various signaling domains for diverse cellular responses.

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Area of Science:

  • Microbiology
  • Biochemistry
  • Genomics

Background:

  • Prokaryotic genomes reveal widespread open reading frames (ORFs) encoding red and blue light sensing photoreceptors.
  • These include bilin-binding phytochromes and flavin-binding cryptochromes, LOV, and BLUF proteins.
  • Approximately 25% of bacteria possess at least one of these photosensory proteins.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the distribution of red- and blue-light sensors across prokaryotic phyla and classes.
  • To understand their functional activity as light-switched systems.
  • To assign photochemical/physiological functions to heterologously expressed gene products.

Main Methods:

  • Genome-based approaches and database searches.
  • Heterologous expression of gene products.
  • Characterization of photochemistry and physiological functions.

Main Results:

  • Widespread distribution of red and blue light sensing photoreceptors in bacteria.
  • Presence of multiple photoreceptor types and combinations within single prokaryotes.
  • Photoreceptors equipped with signaling domains for cellular responses, integrating light-sensing with other stimuli detection (e.g., osmo-regulation, pH).

Conclusions:

  • Bacterial photoreceptors form modular, light-switchable systems.
  • These systems integrate diverse signaling domains, previously associated with other stimuli.
  • Physiological functions are increasingly being assigned to these bacterial photoreceptors following photochemical characterization.