Unique chlorophylls in picoplankton Prochlorococcus sp. "Physicochemical properties of divinyl chlorophylls, and the discovery of monovinyl chlorophyll b as well as divinyl chlorophyll b in the species Prochlorococcus NIES-2086".

In this review, we introduce our recent studies on divinyl chlorophylls functioning in unique marine picoplankton Prochlorococcus sp. (1) Essential physicochemical properties of divinyl chlorophylls are compared with those of monovinyl chlorophylls; separation by normal-phase and reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with isocratic eluent mode, absorption spectra in four organic solvents, fluorescence information (emission spectra, quantum yields, and life time), circular dichroism spectra, mass spectra, nuclear magnetic resonance spectra, and redox potentials. The presence of a mass difference of 278 in the mass spectra between [M+H] and the ions indicates the presence of a phytyl tail in all the chlorophylls.