In many countries, the presence of cyanobacteria in freshwater bodies used for both drinking water and recreational purposes is under increasing public health attention. Water managers are considering how to implement monitoring that leads to a minimization of the risks incurred by the users of potentially contaminated sites. To address this question, this study involved assessing the performan...

Cell-free extracts of the unicellular red alga Cyanidium caldarium catalyze the transformation of biliverdin to a product indistinguishable from phycocyanobilin, the free bilin derived from phycocyanin by methanolysis. Crude cell-free extract requires biliverdin as the only substrate, but after removal of low molecular weight components by gel filtration, the reaction shows an additional requir...

From the absorption spectra, emission and excitation spectra of chlorophyll a (Chl a) and phycocyanin fluorescence measured (from 4 to 77 °K) at different wavelengths, we confirmed that a large portion of Chl a (Chl a 670, Chl a 678 and Chl a 7o5),.in Anacystis, is in System I, and that System II is composed mainly of phycocyanin and of some Chl a 670 and Chl a 678. Our data also confirmed the ...

The amount of 11s aggregate in phycocyanin, normally stimulated by hydrophobic forces, is dramatically increased by the presence of deuterium oxide. Proteins in which hydrophobic forces are not proposed as a mechanism for aggregation are unaffected by deuterium oxide. These observations are consistent with the lower critical micelle concentration reported for ionic detergents in deuterium oxide...

The reaction of biliproteins with sodium dithionite has been studied. The reagent is selective towards the chromophores. In denatured phycocyanin from Spirulina platensis, all three chromophores react to form yellow "phycorubin", whereas only 1/3 of the chromophores react in native phycocyanin in a non-statistical manner. From reversion experiments, it can be shown, that the thermodynamic stabi...

Changes in the absorption spectra o f P. cruentum and phycobiliprotein are observed as a function o f hydrostatic pressure. With phycobiliprotein both in solution and in algae, increasing hydrostatic pressure results in bathochromic shifts o f the absorption maxima. In addition, there is a splitting o f the absorption band of phycoerythrin. When P. cruentum is subjected to 250 bars there are in...

C-phycocyanin is a highly valuable phycobiliprotein from Arthrospira platensis. However, its extraction, purification and conservation currently limit commercial use. We review here the most common techniques less conventional methods. Simple incubation in phosphate buffer at neutral pH can give high yields (> 100 mg/g) even protein purity 0.7) if parameters (buffer concentration, temperature, ...