Photochemical characterization of flavobacterial rhodopsin: The importance of the helix E region for heat stability.

Although many microbial rhodopsins have been discovered many of organisms in a variety of habitats, little is known about the property and diversity of rhodopsin in flavobacteria. Recent studies discovered that many proteorhodopsin (PR)-like proteins exist in genomes of flavobacteria. Following the isolation of a flavobacterial rhodopsins (FR) from the flavobacteria IMCC1997 from the East Sea of Korea, we characterized its photochemical features.