Specificity of in vitro Reassociation of Phycobiliproteins and Membranes to Form Homologous and Heterologous Functional Membrane Bound Phycobilisomes

Abstract

While a wealth of data are available on the composition, structure and as- sembly of phycobiliproteins forming the main light harvesting antenna of cyanophite thylakoids, the phycobilisomes (Gantt, 1980}, only limited in- formation has been obtained on the interaction of phycobilisomes and the photosynthetic membranes. Katoh and Gantt (1979) have reported the isola- tion of membrane bound phycobilisomes from Anabaena. In the present work we report the dissociation and reassociation in vitro of such a complex obtained from Fremyella diplosiphon, as well as of heterologous complexes formed by association of Fremyella phycobiliproteinswit~ thylakoids from other cyanophites or green algae.