Phycocyanin is a blue pigment found in some algae.
Layman's explanation:
Phycocyanin is a naturally produced blue pigment that is found in blue-green
algae and cyanobacteria, and is metal free. The colour stems from its attached openchain
tetrapyrrole chromophores (phycocyanobilin). It fluoresces at a particular
wavelength, which means that it can be used as a chemical tag. When the
pigment is exposed to strong light in a sample, it absorbs all the light energy
and releases it back in a range of wavelengths which is very narrow, and since
it only attaches to certain cells, one can see which cells have been tagged by
the antibodies attached to the phycocyanin. It is a light absorbing stable
protein that works well with chlorophylls in the algae. The compound is also used as a coloring agent in biological research, and it is safe enough to use as a synthetic coloring agent
in many types of foods and cosmetics.
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