Mass Spectrometry of Algal Chlorophyll c Compounds

A chlorophyll c synthase widely co-opted by phytoplankton

“…The two pigments assigned as Chl c 2 and Chl c 1 were purified together from WT cells and analyzed as a single sample. They both exhibited the [M+H−18] + dehydration fragment in their secondary mass spectra; this fragmentation was only reported in chlorophylls with an acrylic side chain at C17 ( 19 ). By contrast, the pigments assigned as DVP and MVP were purified from the chlc-1 mutant, and neither of them gave rise to [M+H−18] + fragment peaks under the same conditions (fig.…”

Catabolism and bioactive properties of chlorophylls

“…In nature, chlorophyll a and b predominate in photosynthetic organisms while chlorophyll c, d and f are pigments found exclusively in certain microalgae, algae and several classes of photosynthetic bacteria ( Table 1). The polar chlorophyll c differs from chlorophylls a, b, d, and f since it is Mg-phytoporphyrins rather than Mg-chlorins [4] due to the unsaturation at ring D. Since 1990, the number of members of the chlorophyll c family has increased from seven (c1, c2, c3, cCS-170 (actually [7-methoxycarbonyl-8-vinyl]-Pchlide), c2-like pigment from Pavlova gyrans, DV-P-chlorophyllides and a nonpolar chlorophyll c-like pigment) to include galactolipid esters [4], recently reviewed [5]. Chlorophyll d, that constitutes 95% of the photosynthetic apparatus of Acaryochloris marina, is formed from the oxidation of the vinyl group at C3 in chlorophyll a to form a formyl group in chlorophyll d ( Table 1).…”