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Updated: Oct 5, 2025

Isolation and Characterization of Intact Phycobilisome in Cyanobacteria
Published on: November 10, 2021
Red fluorescent protein from cyanobacteriochrome chromophorylated with phycocyanobilin and biliverdin
Qiong Ma1, De-Miao Lan2, An-Na Shao2
1College of Biological Science and Technology, Hubei Minzu University, Enshi, 445000, China; Key Laboratory of Biologic Resources Protection and Utilization of Hubei Province, Hubei Minzu University, Enshi, 445000, China.
Abstract:
Cyanobacteriochromes are the extended family of phytochrome photosensors characterized in cyanobacteria. Alr1966g2C56A is a cyanobacteriochrome mutant of Alr1966g2 in Nostoc sp. PCC 7120 from freshwater. In this paper, we truncated ten residues in the N-terminus and ten residues in the C-terminus of Alr1966g2C56A and obtained truncated Alr1966g2C46A, termed as Alr1966g2C46A-tr. Alr1966g2C46A-tr binded covalently not only phycocyanobilin but also biliverdin via Cys74 of the conserved CH motif, and showed a significant improvement in binding-PCB efficiency in E. coli, compared with that of untruncated Alr1966g2C56A. We also captured a persistent red fluorescence of Alr1966g2C46A-tr-PCB or Alr1966g2C46A-tr-BV expressed in live E. coli. Thus, Alr1966g2C46A-tr was suitable for the stable red fluorescent probe as a starting material.
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