Journal
JOURNAL OF BACTERIOLOGY
Volume 201, Issue 10, Pages -Publisher
AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY
DOI: 10.1128/JB.00082-19
Keywords
Actinobacteria; cryptochrome; Cyanobacteria; energy efficiency; light; photosynthesis
Categories
Funding
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) [DEAC36-08GO28308]
- U.S. Department of Energy Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences
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Photosynthesis, the process of converting solar energy into stored chemical bonds, represents the primary mechanism by which biological organisms utilize photons. Light can also be used to activate a number of photosensory compounds and proteins designed to carry out tasks, such as DNA repair, gene regulation, and synchronization with the diurnal cycle. Given that sunlight is incident upon many environments, it is not farfetched to think that life may have evolved other as-yet-undetected mechanisms to profit from solar irradiation. In this issue, Maresca and coworkers detail their observations of light-enhanced growth of several non-photosynthetic actinobacteria, as well as describe the potential photosensitizer responsible for this phenotype and discuss the regulatory networks involved (J. A. Maresca, J. L. Keffer, P. P. Hempel, S. W. Polson, et al., J Bacteriol 201: e00740-18, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1128/JB.00740-18). This study opens the door to many intriguing questions about the use of light as information in nonphotosynthetic biological systems.
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