John F. Allen's Blog at jfallen.org

Regulation of photosynthesis. Control of chloroplast DNA transcription and membrane protein phosphorylation

I felt at home in the research laboratory of Dr. Carlos Gómez of the Department of Biochemistry. I saw a French Press, spectrophotometers and fluorimeters, SDS-PAGE, sucrose gradient centrifugation, and cultures of fascinating cyanobacteria. I learned that Spirulina, once a Mexican speciality and export, is now called Arthrospira. Krisha Rao in King’s College London once gave me a brick-red Spirulina ferredoxin preparation, I seem to recall at 10 mM. I now know Krishna had purified it from Sprulina obtained in Mexico when Krishna worked as a visitor in Carlos’s lab.

Unfortunately I overran again. This seminar was a daunting task, the title requiring me to reach back to a time before most of the audience had been born. It was not all history. The research included Iskander Ibrahim‘s results, published in February this year, on phosphoryl group transfer from cyanobacterial Histidine Kinase 2. So this lecture presented both older and newer work than any lecture in my Mexico tour. An attentive audience again came up with fine questions.

Carlós Gomez and Fanis Missirlis

Mexico Lectures April–May 2016

Regulation of photosynthesis