Research Results

Associate Professor Ritsuko Fujii and a research group from Kobe Pharmaceutical University, Tokushima University, and the National Institute for Basic Biology published a paper titled "Discovery of a novel siphonaxanthin biosynthetic precursor in Codium fragile that accumulates only by exposure to blue-green light" was featured on the cover of Feb's Letters, a journal of the European Biochemical Union published by John Wyer & Sons.

Mill (Codium fragile) grows on the coast, so it uses weak blue-green light in the sea at high tide and strong white light at low tide to photosynthesize. There, a unique carotenoid called siphonaki Mr./Ms. bound to a light-collecting protein efficiently absorbs green light and performs photosynthesis. It has been thought that this siffonaki Mr./Ms. is biosynthesized from lutein, which binds to the light-collecting proteins of land plants such as spinach, but there is no experimental evidence. In this study, we discovered that irradiating the mill with strong blue-green light causes the accumulation of precursors of Siffonaki Mr./Ms., and elucidated the chemical structure of the precursors. These research results were highly evaluated and were selected as the cover.

Publications: FEBS Letters, 2022, 596, 1544-1555