ABSTRACT

DNAphotolyase is a fascinatingmultifaceted protein that, depending

on the background or viewpoint, can be classified as flavoprotein,

DNA repair enzyme, photoactivated enzyme, or bifunctional enzyme.

These multiple features and its considerable history (first described

more than 50 years ago [1]) make it a well-studied object and also a

suitable model system for the study of a wide variety of biological

and biophysical chemistry problems. Before focusing on the state

of the art of the primary photoprocesses at the time of submission

(2012), we shortly introduce the enzyme. A comprehensive review

was written by Sancar in 2003 [2], and more recent work has been

reviewed in Ref. [3].