Mitochondria are essential organelles because of their function in energy conservation. Here, we show an involvement mitochondria phytochrome-dependent light sensing fungi. Phytochrome photoreceptors found plants, bacteria, and fungi contain a linear, heme-derived tetrapyrrole as chromophore. Linearization heme requires oxygenases (HOs) which reside inside chloroplasts planta. Despite the poor ...

A chromophore in which zinc porphyrin donors are linked through their meso positions by ethynyl bridges to a bis(indolinylidenemethyl) squaraine core has been synthesized using Sonogashira coupling. The chromophore exhibits a two-photon absorption spectrum characterized by a peak cross section of 11,000 GM and, more unusually, also exhibits a large cross section of >780 GM over a photon-wavelen...

Resonance Raman spectra of an invertebrate rhodopsin are reported. The spectrum of squid acid metarhodopsin is compared with the spectra of model compounds of the retinylidene chromophore in the all-trans conformation. Correlations made between acid metarhodopsin and these crystalline model compounds with known x-ray structures indicate that the chromophore in this intermediate is an all-trans ...

We derive conditions for the unique and simultaneous recovery of chromophore concentrations and scattering coefficients in multispectral continuous-wave diffuse optical tomography. These conditions depend strongly on measurement wavelengths. We introduce and demonstrate a general methodology for choosing those wavelengths, which yields superior separation of scattering from absorption and super...

Sustained vision requires continuous regeneration of visual pigments in rod and cone photoreceptors by the 11-cis-retinal chromophore. In this issue of Neuron, Mata et al. report a novel enzymatic pathway uniquely designed to keep up with the high demand for cone pigment regeneration in bright light and to preclude rods from utilizing chromophore produced in daylight, when rods are not very use...

The photolyase gene from Thermus thermophilus was cloned and sequenced. The characteristic absorption and fluorescence spectra of the purified T. thermophilus photolyase suggested that the protein has flavin adenine dinucleotide as a chromophore. The second chromophore binding site was not conserved in T. thermophilus photolyase. The purified enzyme showed light-dependent photoreactivation acti...

In this research the factors used to evaluate the light transmission through two types of acrylic hydrophobic intraocular lenses, one that contained yellow chromophore that blocks blue light transmission and the other which did not contain that filter, were defined according to various light condition, e.g., daylight and at night. The potential influence of light transmission trough intraocular...

We used tandem ion mobility spectrometry measurements to investigate how the photo-isomerization of a chromophore (a methylpyridinium derivative) is affected by the complexation with a crown ether. A dramatic blue-shift of the photo-isomerization spectrum was observed upon complexation, which could be well reproduced by ab initio calculations. Our results support that the observed changes in th...

The three-dimensional structures of the wild-type red (zRFP574) and green (zGFP506) fluorescent proteins (FP) from the button polyp Zoanthus have been determined at 1.51 and 2.2 A resolution, respectively. In addition, the crystal structures of a zGFP506 variant (zGFP506_N66D) with replacement of the first chromophore-forming residue (Asn66 to Asp) have been determined in the transitional 'gree...

Cyan, green, yellow, and red fluorescent proteins (FPs) homologous to green fluorescent protein (GFP) are used extensively as model systems to study fundamental processes in photobiology, such as the capture of light energy by protein-embedded chromophores, color tuning by the protein matrix, energy conversion by Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), and excited-state proton transfer (ESPT)...