X-ray Structure Analysis of the Light Harvesting Peridinin-Chlorophyll a-Proteins (PCPs) from Amphidinium carterae und Heterocapsa pygmaea

Dinoflagellates use specific water soluble proteins for light harvesting, the so called Perdinin-Chlorophyll a-Proteins (PCPs). In this work PCPs from two different Dinoflagellate species, Amphidinium carterae (A.c.) and Heterocapsa pygmaea (H.p.), were purified from algal extract and structurally investigated. The structure of PCP from A.c. was solved at atomic resolution (1.45A) by X-ray crystallography. Crystals suitable for X-ray analysis could be obtained for two other forms from A.c. and H.p