Fluorescence spectroscopy and confocal microscopic spectroscopy for investigation of structure and functioning of natural pigment-protein complexes for biosensorics

Natural supramolecular complexes gain much attention of researches at nature-Like and biotechnologies due to their incomparably high efficiency. Cyanobacteria, as the ancient photosynthetic microorganisms, have a perfect mechanism for harvesting and converting solar energy. The effectiveness of their light-harvesting complex is near unity and exhibit multifarious self-fluorescent properties. The last intrinsic natural feature is essential for the fluorescent non- destructive analysis of the structure and functioning of supramolecular pigment-protein complexes on a single-cell level and gives a unique opportunity for steady-state and time-resolved investigations of living cyanobacterial cells in vivo. In this work, the advanced methods of fluorescent spectroscopy (i.e. confocal microscopic spectroscopy and excitation- emission fluorescence spectroscopy) are used to study natural pigment-protein complexes in connection with their possible application in biosensorics and green energy production.