TY - JOUR
T1 - A unique clade of light-driven proton-pumping rhodopsins evolved in the cyanobacterial lineage
AU - Hasegawa, Masumi
AU - Hosaka, Toshiaki
AU - Kojima, Keiichi
AU - Nishimura, Yosuke
AU - Nakajima, Yu
AU - Kimura-Someya, Tomomi
AU - Shirouzu, Mikako
AU - Sudo, Yuki
AU - Yoshizawa, Susumu
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Drs. K. Hirata, N. Sakai, and Y. Kawano at the BL32XU of SPring-8 (Hyogo, Japan) for their technical assistance with data collection and data processing. We are grateful to H. Tanabe and Y. Nakamura for their technical support for the collection of X-ray diffraction data. We also thank K. Kogure for discussions useful for this study. This work was supported by MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 17K07324 (T.H.); 18H04136 (S.Y.); and 18H02411, 19H05396, and 19H0427 (Y.S.). This research was partially supported by Platform Project for Supporting Drug Discovery and Life Science Research (Basis for Supporting Innovative Drug Discovery and Life Science Research (BINDS)) from AMED under Grant Number JP19am0101082.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - Microbial rhodopsin is a photoreceptor protein found in various bacteria and archaea, and it is considered to be a light-utilization device unique to heterotrophs. Recent studies have shown that several cyanobacterial genomes also include genes that encode rhodopsins, indicating that these auxiliary light-utilizing proteins may have evolved within photoautotroph lineages. To explore this possibility, we performed a large-scale genomic survey to clarify the distribution of rhodopsin and its phylogeny. Our surveys revealed a novel rhodopsin clade, cyanorhodopsin (CyR), that is unique to cyanobacteria. Genomic analysis revealed that rhodopsin genes show a habitat-biased distribution in cyanobacterial taxa, and that the CyR clade is composed exclusively of non-marine cyanobacterial strains. Functional analysis using a heterologous expression system revealed that CyRs function as light-driven outward H+ pumps. Examination of the photochemical properties and crystal structure (2.65 Å resolution) of a representative CyR protein, N2098R from Calothrix sp. NIES-2098, revealed that the structure of the protein is very similar to that of other rhodopsins such as bacteriorhodopsin, but that its retinal configuration and spectroscopic characteristics (absorption maximum and photocycle) are distinct from those of bacteriorhodopsin. These results suggest that the CyR clade proteins evolved together with chlorophyll-based photosynthesis systems and may have been optimized for the cyanobacterial environment.
AB - Microbial rhodopsin is a photoreceptor protein found in various bacteria and archaea, and it is considered to be a light-utilization device unique to heterotrophs. Recent studies have shown that several cyanobacterial genomes also include genes that encode rhodopsins, indicating that these auxiliary light-utilizing proteins may have evolved within photoautotroph lineages. To explore this possibility, we performed a large-scale genomic survey to clarify the distribution of rhodopsin and its phylogeny. Our surveys revealed a novel rhodopsin clade, cyanorhodopsin (CyR), that is unique to cyanobacteria. Genomic analysis revealed that rhodopsin genes show a habitat-biased distribution in cyanobacterial taxa, and that the CyR clade is composed exclusively of non-marine cyanobacterial strains. Functional analysis using a heterologous expression system revealed that CyRs function as light-driven outward H+ pumps. Examination of the photochemical properties and crystal structure (2.65 Å resolution) of a representative CyR protein, N2098R from Calothrix sp. NIES-2098, revealed that the structure of the protein is very similar to that of other rhodopsins such as bacteriorhodopsin, but that its retinal configuration and spectroscopic characteristics (absorption maximum and photocycle) are distinct from those of bacteriorhodopsin. These results suggest that the CyR clade proteins evolved together with chlorophyll-based photosynthesis systems and may have been optimized for the cyanobacterial environment.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41598-020-73606-y
DO - 10.1038/s41598-020-73606-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 33028840
AN - SCOPUS:85092126396
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 10
JO - Scientific reports
JF - Scientific reports
IS - 1
M1 - 16752
ER -