Protein Response on Biliverdin Excitation in a Bacteriophytochrome from femtoseconds to hours
Phytochrome proteins are red light photosensors which control the growth, reproduction, or photosystem synthesis in plants and procaryotes. In our studies, we concentrate mainly on the functional properties of bacteriophytochromes, from light activation to biochemical output signalling. Light is detected by a bilin cofactor, which undergoes a ring isomerization in response to the light absorption. After the photoisomerization a cascade of structural changes takes place on multiple tiers of the protein. In turn, these changes control many different types of biochemical reactions in the host cell. In my talk I describe the interplay between the effector domain and the chromophore binding domain, in a many different time scales, from femtoseconds to hours.
