European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

CYANOBACTERIAL PHOTOSYNTHETIC COMPLEXES AND THEIR ASSOCIATED BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS: STRUCTURE, FUNCTION, AND BIOTECHNOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS

Ayyaraju Middepogu, Suresh Kumar Chitta, C.M. Anuradha*

ABSTRACT

All our food, fossil and biological fuels (biomass) are derived from the process of photosynthesis. This process is the fundamental and essential process where solar energy is converted into chemical energy, adenosine tri phosphate (ATP) and Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH). This chemical energy is required for the synthesis of the carbohydrates from CO2. In addition to this, molecular oxygen is released as a result of an early event of photosynthesis. Thus all forms of life in the universe require the oxygen and energy for the growth and maintenance. In higher plants and green algae the entire process of photosynthesis takes place in chloroplast, where as in cyanobacteria which lacks chloroplast the same process occurs in intact cells. Photosynthesis consists of two phases, one is light phase and other is dark phase. In light phase the harvested light energy will be converted to chemical form (ATP and NADPH) during the photosynthetic electron transport. In the dark phase these energy rich compounds are utilized for the conversion of CO2 into carbohydrates. In this present review we demonstrate on cyanobacterial photosynthetic complexes and its compounds. In this review we are exploring on the cyanobacterial photosynthetic pigments and its compounds.

Keywords: Cyanobacteria, Photosynthetic complexes, Polypeptides, Pigments.