Proteins help plants go green

A scene from the Njattuvela 2010 an exhibition cum sale of Agricultural plants organised by Khadi emporium in Kozhikode. Photo: S. Ramesh Kurup

Light is so essential for plants that they have two different systems to take advantage of it, explains Meng Chen, an assistant professor of biology at Duke University.

A familiar system — chloroplasts — turn sunlight into fuel via photosynthesis. The photosynthetic pigment inside chloroplasts, chlorophyll, is where the green colour comes from.

And then there is a system of light-sensitive proteins called photoreceptors that use light as information and direct plant development and growth. One of the things the plant does with that information is control how it makes chloroplasts. "The greening process is completely dependent on the presence of light. However, how light triggers the making of chloroplasts is still unknown," Chen said.

A team of researchers from Duke University and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has found a central part in the machinery that turns plants green when they sense light.

The team has identified a key intermediary between the light system for information and the light system that makes fuel. The hope is that this knowledge will help researchers use a plant's own photo-sensory systems to increase agricultural yields or improve the photosynthesis of biofuel crops. It is published in Cell.

Plants have an array of photoreceptors that are tuned to different wavelengths of light. One type, called phytochromes, are sensitive to red and far-red light and play a major role in the making of chloroplasts and the growth of the stem, said Chen. One of the first things that happen when the plant detects light is that these phytochromes move from the cell's cytoplasm to its nucleus, where the genes are kept. The photoreceptors gather in discrete spots known as phytochrome nuclear bodies. In an earlier study, Chen had found that the size and number of phytochrome nuclear bodies was directly related to light intensity.

Chen ran genetic screens for mutants with abnormal phytochrome nuclear bodies. He identified a new gene, hemera, that seems to be required for both the localization and the signaling of phytochrome.

It is present in all land plants studied so far, according to a Duke University press release.

Mutant plants without hemera were found to have dramatically reduced sensitivity to red and far-red light, they failed to develop chloroplasts, were albino, and died while still only seedlings.