Hong Ha Vu, Heide Behrmann, Maja Hanić, Gayathri Jeyasankar, Shruthi Krishnan, Dennis Dannecker, Constantin Hammer, Monika Gunkel, Ilia A Solov'yov, Eva Wolf, Elmar Behrmann
Cryptochromes (CRYs) are a structurally conserved but functionally diverse family of proteins that can confer unique sensory properties to organisms. In the marine bristle worm Platynereis dumerilii, its light receptive cryptochrome L-CRY (PdLCry) allows the animal to discriminate between sunlight and moonlight, an important requirement for synchronizing its lunar cycle-dependent mass spawning. Using cryo-electron microscopy, we show that in the dark, PdLCry adopts a dimer arrangement observed neither in plant nor insect CRYs...
October 30, 2023: Nature Communications