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Updated: Feb 6, 2026

Spectrophotometric Determination of Phycobiliprotein Content in Cyanobacterium Synechocystis
Published on: September 11, 2018
Plant and algal chlorophyll synthases function in Synechocystis and interact with the YidC/Alb3 membrane insertase
Matthew S Proctor1, Jack W Chidgey1, Mahendra K Shukla2,3
1Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Sheffield, UK.
Abstract:
In the model cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, the terminal enzyme of chlorophyll biosynthesis, chlorophyll synthase (ChlG), forms a complex with high light-inducible proteins, the photosystem II assembly factor Ycf39 and the YidC/Alb3/OxaI membrane insertase, co-ordinating chlorophyll delivery with cotranslational insertion of nascent photosystem polypeptides into the membrane. To gain insight into the ubiquity of this assembly complex in higher photosynthetic organisms, we produced functional foreign chlorophyll synthases in a cyanobacterial host. Synthesis of algal and plant chlorophyll synthases allowed deletion of the otherwise essential native cyanobacterial gene. Analysis of purified protein complexes shows that the interaction with YidC is maintained for both eukaryotic enzymes, indicating that a ChlG-YidC/Alb3 complex may be evolutionarily conserved in algae and plants.
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