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Sci. STKE, 23 November 2004
Vol. 2004, Issue 260, p. tw427
[DOI: 10.1126/stke.2602004tw427]

EDITORS' CHOICE

MICROBIOLOGY Shedding Light on a Light Meter

Microbes generally find it difficult to seek shelter from the Sun and must be able to sense and adjust to varying illumination conditions to protect themselves from light-induced damage. Sensory rhodopsins are a subset of the large family of archaeal and eubacterial rhodopsins. Unlike their ion-pumping brethren, they use an integral chromophore, a retinal derivative, to sense the wavelength of incident light and communicate this information through protein-protein interactions. Vogeley et al. describe the crystal structure of a cyanobacterial (Anabaena) sensory rhodopsin that has the unusual property of existing in two photoactive stable states; most rhodopsins are stable in a dark-adapted state and cycle through a sequence of conformational changes upon illumination. These orange- and blue-sensitive states would enable Anabaena to assess the quality (color composition) of ambient light and to adjust its repertoire of light-harvesting complexes.

L. Vogeley, O. A. Sineshchekov, V. D. Trivedi, J. Sasaki, J. L. Spudich, H. Luecke, Anabaena sensory rhodopsin: A photochromic color sensor at 2.0 A. Science 306, 1390-1393 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text]

Citation: Shedding Light on a Light Meter. Sci. STKE 2004, tw427 (2004).

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