AplA, a member of a new class of phycobiliproteins lacking a traditional role in photosynthetic light harvesting.

All known phycobiliproteins have light-harvesting roles during photosynthesis and are found in water-soluble phycobilisomes, the light-harvesting complexes of cyanobacteria, cyanelles, and red algae. Phycobiliproteins are chromophore-bearing proteins that exist as heterodimers of alpha and beta subunits, possess a number of highly conserved amino acid residues important for dimerization and chromophore binding, and are invariably 160 to 180 amino acids long. A new and unusual group of proteins that is most closely related to the allophycocyanin members of the phycobiliprotein superfamily has been identified. Each of these proteins, which have been named allophycocyanin-like (Apl) proteins, apparently contains a 28-amino-acid extension at its amino terminus relative to allophycocyanins. Apl family members possess the residues critical for chromophore interactions, but substitutions are present at positions implicated in maintaining the proper alpha-beta subunit interactions and tertiary structure of phycobiliproteins, suggesting that Apl proteins are able to bind chromophores but fail to adopt typical allophycocyanin conformations. AplA isolated from the cyanobacterium Fremyella diplosiphon contained a covalently attached chromophore and, although present in the cell under a number of conditions, was not detected in phycobilisomes. Thus, Apl proteins are a new class of photoreceptors with a different cellular location and structure than any previously described members of the phycobiliprotein superfamily.