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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 282, Issue 10, 7320-7328, March 9, 2007

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A Singular Bacteriophytochrome Acquired by Lateral Gene Transfer^*

Marianne Jaubert¹, Jérôme Lavergne, Joël Fardoux, Laure Hannibal, Laurie Vuillet, Jean-Marc Adriano, Pierre Bouyer, David Pignol, Eric Giraud², and André Verméglio²³

From the Laboratoire des Symbioses Tropicales et Méditerranéennes, IRD, CIRAD, AGRO-M, INRA, UM2. TA 10/J, Campus de Baillarguet, 34398 Montpellier and Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA)/Cadarache DEVM-Laboratoire de Bioénergétique Cellulaire UMR 6191 CNRS-CEA-Aix-Marseille II, 13108 Saint Paul lez Durance, France

Bacteriophytochromes are phytochrome-like proteins that mediate photosensory responses in various bacteria according to their light environment. The genome of the photosynthetic and plant-symbiotic Bradyrhizobium sp. strain ORS278 revealed the presence of a genomic island acquired by lateral transfer harboring a bacteriophytochrome gene, BrBphP3.ORS278, and genes involved in the synthesis of phycocyanobilin and gas vesicles. The corresponding protein BrBphP3.ORS278 is phylogenetically distant from the other (bacterio)phytochromes described thus far and displays a series of unusual properties. It binds phycocyanobilin as a chromophore, a unique feature for a bacteriophytochrome. Moreover, its C-terminal region is short and displays no homology with any known functional domain. Its dark-adapted state absorbs maximally around 610 nm, an unusually short wavelength for (bacterio)phytochromes. This form is designated as Po for orange-absorbing form. Upon illumination, a photo-reversible switch occurs between the Po form and a red (670 nm)-absorbing form (Pr), which rapidly backreacts in the dark. Because of this instability, illumination results in a mixture of the Po and Pr states in proportions that depend on the intensity. These uncommon features suggest that BrBphP3.ORS278 could be fitted to measure light intensity rather than color.

Received for publication, December 6, 2006 , and in revised form, January 11, 2007.

The nucleotide sequence(s) reported in this paper has been submitted to the DDBJ/GenBank^TM/EBI Data Bank with accession number(s) CU234118.

^* The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.jbc.org) contains supplemental Figs. S1–S4.

¹ Recipient of a doctoral grant from "Ministère de l'Education Nationale, de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche."

² Both authors contributed equally to this work.

³ To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: 33-442254630; Fax: 33-442254701; E-mail: avermeglio{at}cea.fr.

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				M. Jaubert, L. Vuillet, L. Hannibal, J.-M. Adriano, J. Fardoux, P. Bouyer, K. Bonaldi, D. Fleischman, E. Giraud, and A. Vermeglio Control of Peripheral Light-Harvesting Complex Synthesis by a Bacteriophytochrome in the Aerobic Photosynthetic Bacterium Bradyrhizobium Strain BTAi1 J. Bacteriol., September 1, 2008; 190(17): 5824 - 5831. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]