Phycobiliproteins are water-soluble, light-harvesting proteins that are highly fluorescent due to linear tetrapyrrole chromophores, which makes them valuable as probes. Enzymes called bilin lyases usually attach these bilin chromophores to specific cysteine residues within the alpha and beta subunits via thioether linkages. A multiplasmid coexpression system was used to recreate the biosynthetic pathway for phycobiliproteins from the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7002 in Escherichia coli. This system efficiently produced chromophorylated allophycocyanin (ApcA/ApcB) and ␣-phycocyanin with holoprotein yields ranging from 3 to 12 mg liter ؊1 of culture. This heterologous expression system was used to demonstrate that the CpcS-I and CpcU proteins are both required to attach phycocyanobilin (PCB) to allophycocyanin subunits ApcD (␣ AP-B ) and ApcF (␤ 18 ). The N-terminal, allophycocyanin-like domain of ApcE (L CM 99 ) was produced in soluble form and was shown to have intrinsic bilin lyase activity. Lastly, this in vivo system was used to evaluate the efficiency of the bilin lyases for production of ␤-phycocyanin.

Cyanobacterial phycobiliproteins have evolved to capture light energy over most of the visible spectrum due to their bilin chromophores, which are linear tetrapyrroles that have been covalently attached by enzymes called bilin lyases. We report here the crystal structure of a bilin lyase of the CpcS family from Thermosynechococcus elongatus (TeCpcS-III). TeCpcS-III is a 10-stranded beta barrel with two alpha helices and belongs to the lipocalin structural family. TeCpcS-III catalyzes both cognate as well as non-cognate bilin attachment to a variety of phycobiliprotein subunits. TeCpcS-III ligates phycocyanobilin, phycoerythrobilin and phytochromobilin to the alpha and beta subunits of allophycocyanin and to the beta subunit of phycocyanin at the Cys82-equivalent position in all cases. The active form of TeCpcS-III is a dimer, which is consistent with the structure observed in the crystal. Using the UnaG protein and its association with bilirubin as a guide, a model for the association between the native substrate, phycocyanobilin, and TeCpcS was produced.