The amazing phycobilisome.
By N. Adir, Shira Bar-Zvi, D. Harris. 2020
136 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Cyanobacteria and red-algae share a common light-harvesting complex which is different than all other complexes which serve as photosynthetic antennas - the Phycobilisome (PBS). The PBS is found attached to the stromal side of thylakoid membranes, filling up most of the gap between individual thylakoids. The PBS self assembles from similar homologous protein units that are soluble and contain conserved cysteine residues that covalently bind the light absorbing chromophores, linear tetra-pyrroles. Using similar construction principles, the PBS can be as large as 16.8 MDa (68×45×39nm), as small as 1.2 MDa (24 × 11.5 × 11.5 nm), and in some unique cases smaller still. The PBS can absorb light between 450 nm to 650 nm and in some cases beyond 700 nm, depending on the species, its composition and assembly. In this review, we will present new observations and structures that expand our understanding of the distinctive properties that make the PBS an amazing light harvesting system. At the end we will suggest why the PBS, for all of its excellent properties, was discarded by photosynthetic organisms that arose later in evolution such as green algae and higher plants.
Subfields: Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Plant Science
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In Molecular Biology
Citations in the corpus
- Generalized Biomolecular Modeling and Design with RoseTTAFold All-Atom (2023, positive): “When bilins are constrained by protein scaffolds, such as phycobiliproteins in the megadalton phycobilisome antenna complexes of cyanobacteria and some algae ( 60 ), their absorption features narrow, their extinction co-efficients increase, and their fluorescence is markedly enhanced.”