Plant responses to UV and blue light: Biochemical and genetic approaches

UV and blue light control many aspects of plant growth and development. It is evident that several different photoreceptors mediate responses to UV and blue light, and there are reports of the functional and biochemical characterisation of a putative photoreceptor for phototropism and of the functional and molecular characterisation of the CRY1 photoreceptor, encoded by the Arabidopsis HY4 gene. The CRY1 photoreceptor mediates extension growth and gene expression responses to UV-A/blue light presumably through different or branching signal transduction pathways. Progress has been made in cell physiological and biochemical studies of UV/blue light signal transduction, but much remains to be done to relate candidate UV/blue signal transduction events to particular photoreceptors and responses. The application of a genetic approach in Arabidopsis has been responsible for many advances in understanding UV/blue responses, but further UV-B, UV-A and blue light response mutants need to be isolated.