MICROSPECTROSCOPY OF PHOTORECEPTOR PIGMENTS IN FLAGELLATED ALGAE

Quantitative microscopy represents an interdisciplinary methodology which can allow both structural investigation and spectroscopic characterization of cellular or subcellular features and organelles of living, unfixed, and unstained material. Quantitative microscopy utilizes techniques which arise from both spectroscopy and light microscopy. The results obtainable by this methodology are unlikely to be obtained by other techniques such as biochemical analysis. Quantitative microscopy has been successfully applied to the study of the photoreceptive apparatus of flagellate algae because the photopigments present in that apparatus are very labile for their amount and their location. This review deals with the description of the already realized experimental apparatus for quantitative microscopy and with the measurements which have been performed by means of these instrumentations on the photoreactive structures of flagellate algae. Theoretical and practical constraints of these experimental set-up and investigating procedures are emphasized as well.