About the Authors

Jiro Harada

jiro_harada@med.kurume-u.ac.jp (JH); tamiaki@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp (HT)

Affiliation Department of Medical Biochemistry, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan

Tadashi Mizoguchi

Affiliation Graduate School of Life Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Shiga, Japan

Souichirou Satoh

Current address: Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Kyoto Prefectural University, Kyoto, Japan

Affiliation Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

Yusuke Tsukatani

Affiliations Graduate School of Life Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Shiga, Japan, Precursory Research for Embryonic Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi, Saitama, Japan

Makio Yokono

Current address: Molecular Photoscience Research Center, Kobe University, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan

Affiliation Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

Masato Noguchi

Affiliation Department of Medical Biochemistry, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan

Ayumi Tanaka

Affiliations Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

Hitoshi Tamiaki

jiro_harada@med.kurume-u.ac.jp (JH); tamiaki@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp (HT)

Affiliation Graduate School of Life Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Shiga, Japan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Edited the manuscript: HT JH TM SS YT MY MN AT. Performed the mutational analyses: JH. Contributed spectroscopic analysis of the bchU mutant cells and its extracted pigments: JH TM. Determined the compositions of BChl c homologs in the mutant: TM. Analyzed genomic DNA sequence of Cba limnaeum RK-j-1: JH YT. Performed comparative genome analysis by CCCT program using GSBs genomic data: SS MY. Conceived and designed the experiments: JH MN AT HT. Analyzed the data: JH HT. Wrote the paper: JH HT.