Photoperception and its mechanism of blue light receptor phototropin in plants

植物利用光来控制它们的发育和生理现象。蓝光与红光一样有效，可介导植物的致光性反应、叶绿体运动、气孔打开、叶片扩张等。这些反应是由一种蓝光感受器——促光蛋白介导的。趋光蛋白由c端一半的丝氨酸/苏氨酸蛋白激酶和n端一半的两个LOV结构域组成。LOV结构域结合黄素单核苷酸并吸收蓝光。本课题旨在研究趋光素在叶绿体运动、气孔打开和趋光性中的信号转导途径，阐明趋光素及其相关光感受器光敏色素3在光觉中的主要作用。从2001年到2005年3月，我们对这些课题进行了4年的研究，发现了促光蛋白的许多新方面。发表了44篇原创论文，其中Nature论文4篇，Science论文1篇；发表了17篇关于趋光素及其相关光感受器的综述。其中一些在附件的参考资料中列出。虽然我们在2005年3月底结束了该项目的研究，但我们于2005年11月在冈崎召开了为期两天的促光激素研讨会，希望在不久的将来进一步推进促光激素的研究。本次研讨会邀请了来自格拉斯哥的john Christie博士和来自德克萨斯州的kevin Gardner博士两位这方面的专家，并就进一步深入研究促光素和光促光素介导的反应进行了热烈的讨论。

Plants use light for controlling their development and physiological phenomena. Blue light is as effective as red light and mediates phototropic response, chloroplast movement, stomata opening, leaf expansion, etc. These responses are mediated by one of the blue light photoreceptors, phototropins. Phototropins are consisted of serine/threonine protein kinase in C-terminus half and two LOV domains in N-terminus half. LOV domains bind flavin mononucleotides and absorb blue light. Our purpose in this grant was to study the phototropin signal trasduction pathways in chloroplast movement, stomata opening and phototropism and clarify the primary action of photoperception of phototropins and related photoreceptor, phytochrome 3. We studied on these subjects for four years from 2001 to March 2005 and found various new aspects on phototropins. We published 44 original papers including 4 Nature papers and 1 Science paper and 17 reviews on phototropin and phototropin related photoreceptors. Some of them are listed in the references attached.Although our research in this project finished at the end of March 2005, we held a two-days symposium on phototropins on November 2005 at Okazaki, hoping further advancement of phototropin studies in near future. In this symposium, two experts on this subject, Dr.John Christie from Glasgow and Dr.Kevin Gardner from Texas were invited and hot discussions were taken place for searching the ways to go for further advanced studies of phototropins and phototropin-mediated responses.