Evolution of the Phycobiliproteins

Amino acid sequence alignments and phylogenetic analyses have been used to examine the relationships among 100 phycobiliprotein sequences. The alignments revealed a number of highly conserved amino acid residues that are involved in chromophore attachment and conformation, α-β interactions and phycobilisome assembly. The phylogenetic analysis confirmed that the phycobiliprotein subfamilies, previously classified by their biochemical and...