I was aware of optogenics, but not this. I'm already dreaming up ideas for how to use it, if it can be expressed in prokaryotes.
Glad to see you mentioned GenBank too, this is a good example of how having a publicly available database of previous research, in a machine readable format, can help with unraveling current mysteries (or, as you put it more succinctly, 'trickery').
Its a membrane protein, so it would likely not be as useful in prokaryotic organisms.
A little embarrassed to not have considered that. Then again, it's just an opportunity to isolate the active site in a non-membrane bound portion or play around with embedding in in planctomycetes (ha, right).
Indeed, there is the potential for domain fusions with other proteins of interest, but considering the structure of this one, I don't know if that's possible. Only more research will let us know.