Figure 2.

Fluorescence decay kinetics of the OCP-TagGFP (A) and TagRFP-OCP (B) chimeras in their apo-forms lacking a carotenoid molecule as an energy acceptor (black curve), with carotenoid (red) and after photoactivation of the OCP component (blue) by a 200 mW blue LED. Experiments were conducted at 5 °C in order to reduce the photoconversion rates¹⁵. Numbers indicate characteristic lifetimes and the corresponding amplitude contributions derived from the fitting of the decay curves by two exponential functions. The absence of decay components with lifetimes characteristic for the apoforms of the chimeras in the fluorescence decays of the holoforms indicates that the chimeras were fully loaded with carotenoids upon overnight incubation of the apo-forms with an excess of COCP as a carotenoid donor.