Book Description

Phycoerythrin, pigment-protein complex in photosynthetic organisms, plays a role in photosynthesis in transferring an energy abosrbed by itself to chlorophyll. Previous studies in this laboratory showed that the longest absorption band at 565 millimicrons responsible for fluorescence originates from the interaction between the pigment and SH-group of the protein in phycoerythrin. During the course of investigation on the effect of SH-blocking agent on energy transfer, it was found that modified phycoerythrin is released from cells treated with PCMB. This modified phycoerythrin possesses a single absorption band at 545 millimicrons, while native phycoerythrin shows three absorption bands at 500, 545, and 565 millimicrons. In the glutathione-treated modified phycoerythrin, the highly fluorescent 565 millimicrons chromophore was partially regenerated. This investigation indicates that native phycoerythrin is composed of two units and that modified phycoerythrin is one of them separated from the other containing the 500 millimicrons chromophore only. (Author).