Recent and Fun Kehoe News:

“Cyanobacteria” written in Chinese using Fremyella diplosiphon cells. The left half of the plate was covered with a red filter and the right half with a green filter during growth. Plate and photo by Lina Li.

Lina Li displays remarkable dedication to her research by pipetting on her wedding day.

Photomicrograph of F. diplosiphon red mutant colonies in a lawn of green wild type cells. Photo by Rick Alvey.

Introduction

Our research group employs genetic, molecular, and biochemical approaches to understand how cyanobacteria in aquatic habitats sense and respond to changing environments. We primarily focus on how light and nutrient conditions affect the composition of the photosynthetic light harvesting antennae of these cells. Cyanobacterial photosynthesis produces nearly 50% of the Earth’s oxygen, so it is important to understand how antennae biogenesis is controlled. We are:

• Uncovering the signaling pathways regulating acclimation to changing ratios of red and green light in freshwater and marine environments.
• Characterizing the regulation of an ecologically important acclimation response of marine cyanobacteria to varying ratios of blue and green light.
• Discovering the mechanisms controlling a fascinating response to sulfur limitation involving cellular self-cannibalism called “proteome remodeling".
• Restructuring cyanobacterial light harvesting characteristics to increase solar energy capture efficiency and provide low cost, sustainable energy.