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].