Abstract

Rhodopsin is a photoreceptive membrane protein functioning as a photosensor in our eyes. Also, a large distinctive family of a different type of rhodopsin in unicellular microorganism, which is called “microbial rhodopsin” is known. Microbial rhodopsins exhibit a variety of biological function upon light absorption: light-driven ion pump, light-gated ion channel, phototactic sensor, gene regulation of photosynthetic pigment proteins, light-dependent enzyme and so on. Recently, those functions of microbial rhodopsins are used in optogenetics, a new biological technology to manipulate various physiological events in vivo light. I will introduce our recent study on new microbial rhodopsins with novel functions and their molecular mechanisms by spectroscopic and structural biological methods.

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