Using natural variation for the investigation of the phytochrome A sequence/function relationship

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Plants use various classes of photoreceptors to measure diverse aspects of their ambient environment. By converting light spectra into transducible signals, these receptors control nuclear gene expression to modify growth in response to diverse stimuli such as spectral composition and light intensity. Phytochrome A is the only far-red light receptor in plants and plays a critical role for germination and seedling establishment in deep canopy shade. In the proposed project, we aim to find amino acid polymorphisms which alter a plant’s capacity to respond to far-red light and describe how they affect the ability of phytochrome A to function as a protein scaffold upon which diverse light dependent pathways are integrated. To this end, we will screen the 1135 Arabidopsis accessions of the 1001 Genomes Project for accessions that are compromised in their ability to respond to far-red light and pinpoint characteristic changes in the primary sequences of phytochrome A. We then test the effects these amino acid substitutions have on protein-protein interactions involving phytochrome A and characterise the properties of the different phytochrome A variants from accessions with altered response to far-red light. The goal of the project will be to establish a set of important amino acid substitutions and link them to the protein-protein interactions and other critical properties of phytochrome A which they influence.