Ultrafast light-induced processes in DNA photolyase and its substrate-bound complex

DNA photolyase 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].