title: The family of phytochrome-like photoreceptors: diverse, complex and multi-colored, but very useful.
abstract: Bilin-dependent GAF domain photoreceptors cover the whole spectrum of light with their absorbance properties. They can be divided into three groups according to the domain architecture of their photosensory module. Group I and Group II harbor phytochromes with PAS-GAF-PHY and GAF-PHY domain architecture, respectively. Group III consists of stand-alone GAF domain photoreceptors, the cyanobacteriochromes. Crystal structures of all three groups are now available to shed light on possible downstream signaling pathways. Structures of Group I and III photoreceptors in both states display changes in the secondary structures during photoconversion. The knowledge about the photoconversion in phytochromes and CBCRs make them promising targets for applications in life science and synthetic biology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Philipps-University, Hans-Meerwein-Str. 4, D-35032 Marburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Katrin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Anders
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Philipps-University, Hans-Meerwein-Str. 4, D-35032 Marburg, Germany. Electronic address: essen@chemie.uni-marburg.de.
authors.forename: Lars-Oliver
authors.initials: LO
authors.lastname: Essen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D010834:Phytochrome / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D010858:Pigmentation; D015398:Signal Transduction; D058615:Synthetic Biology
chemical_list: D010834:Phytochrome