ELIP: antistress protein
The Early Light-Inducible Protein, ELIP, was first
identified as rapidly accumulating mRNA during pea greening by Dr. K.
Kloppstech's laboratory
in 1984. Identification of the corresponding cDNA revealed that ELIP
has
a homology to LHCP (anntena). Further expression analyses revealed that
ELIP is strongly induced by light stress in various plant species.
Therefore,
the role of ELIP appears to be protection of the reaction centers from
excess
light, rather than light harvest for increase of photosynthetic
efficiency.
ELIP contains carotenoids and chlorophylls. ELIP is widely distributed
in
higher plants, but absent from Cyanobacterium. However, Cyanobacterium
has
a distant homologue, HLIP (High Light Inducible Protein), whose
counterpart
in higher plants (Arabidopsis) is OHP (One Helix Protein). HLIP of
Cyanobacterium
is imagined to be the origin of higher plants' ELIP , SEP as well as
LHCP.