What Happened to the Phycobilisome?
Botany Department, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6N 3T7, Canada
Biomolecules 2019, 9(11), 748; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom9110748
Received: 26 September 2019 / Revised: 13 November 2019 / Accepted: 14 November 2019 / Published: 19 November 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Evolutionary and Molecular Aspects of Plastid Endosymbioses)
The phycobilisome (PBS) is the major light-harvesting complex of photosynthesis in cyanobacteria, red algae, and glaucophyte algae. In spite of the fact that it is very well structured to absorb light and transfer it efficiently to photosynthetic reaction centers, it has been completely lost in the green algae and plants. It is difficult to see how selection alone could account for such a major loss. An alternative scenario takes into account the role of chance, enabled by (contingent on) the evolution of an alternative antenna system early in the diversification of the three lineages from the first photosynthetic eukaryote.
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Keywords:
chloroplast; primary endosymbiosis; historical contingency; phycobilisome; LHC; prochlorophyte; chlorophyll; phycobiliprotein
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MDPI and ACS Style
Green, B.R. What Happened to the Phycobilisome? Biomolecules 2019, 9, 748. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom9110748
AMA Style
Green BR. What Happened to the Phycobilisome? Biomolecules. 2019; 9(11):748. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom9110748
Chicago/Turabian StyleGreen, Beverley R. 2019. "What Happened to the Phycobilisome?" Biomolecules 9, no. 11: 748. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom9110748
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