Flavins are employed to transform physical input into biological output signals. In this function, flavins catalyze a variety of light-induced reactions and redox processes. However, nature also provides flavoproteins with the ability to uncouple the mediation of signals. Such proteins are the riboflavin-binding proteins (RfBPs) with their function to store riboflavin for fast delivery of FMN and FAD. Here we present in vitro and in vivo data showing that the recently discovered archaeal dodecin is an RfBP, and we reveal that riboflavin storage is not restricted to eukaryotes. However, the function of the prokaryotic RfBP dodecin seems to be adapted to the requirement of a monocellular organism. While in eukaryotes RfBPs are involved in trafficking riboflavin, and dodecin is responsible for the flavin homeostasis of the cell. Although only 68 amino acids in length, dodecin is of high functional versatility in neutralizing riboflavin to protect the cellular environment from uncontrolled flavin reactivity. Besides the predominant ultrafast quenching of excited states, dodecin prevents light-induced riboflavin reactivity by the selective degradation of riboflavin to lumichrome. Coordinated with the high affinity for lumichrome, the directed degradation reaction is neutral to the cellular environment and provides an alternative pathway for suppressing uncontrolled riboflavin reactivity. Intriguingly, the different structural and functional properties of a homologous bacterial dodecin suggest that dodecin has different roles in different kingdoms of life.Flavins are a major class of cofactors that are able to accept and donate electrons as well as to absorb visible light. Flavins consist of a nonconserved aliphatic moiety, covalently linked to a conserved aromatic isoalloxazine ring ( In all flavins, the catalytically active unit is the isoalloxazine substructure (2-4). To handle the reactivity of the isoalloxazine ring, FMN and FAD are tightly bound to flavoenzymes. Finely tuned binding restricts the reaction spectrum of FMN and FAD to discrete, beneficial reaction pathways, preventing harmful side reactions. Reported functions of flavoenzymes include transferring electrons from and to reactive centers (e.g. respiratory chain) as well as employing light for the induction of radical reactions (e.g. DNA-photolyase) or conformational changes (e.g. phototropin) (5-8). In the biosynthesis, the full catalytic power of flavins has already formed at the stage of the FMN and FAD precursor RF (see Fig. 1). As RF is not used as an enzymatically active compound, it is, different to FMN and FAD, not integrated into flavoenzymes. To avoid a negative impact of uncontrolled flavin reactivity by free RF, nature established sequestering devices termed riboflavin-binding proteins (RfBPs). These proteins have been shown to store and distribute RF in eukaryotes, ensuring a fast supply of FMN and FAD (9, 10).The small flavoprotein dodecin from the archaeon Halobacterium salinarum was reported to bind RF with high affinity and to extensiv...