Engineering the Phototropin Photocycle Improves Photoreceptor Performance and Plant Biomass Production

Overview

Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Specialty Science

Date 2019 Jun 5

PMID 31160455

Citations 18

Authors

Jaynee E Hart

Stuart Sullivan

Pawel Hermanowicz

Jan Petersen

L Aranzazu Diaz-Ramos

David J Hoey

Justyna Labuz

John M Christie

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The ability to enhance photosynthetic capacity remains a recognized bottleneck to improving plant productivity. Phototropin blue light receptors (phot1 and phot2) optimize photosynthetic efficiency in by coordinating multiple light-capturing processes. In this study, we explore the potential of using protein engineering to improve photoreceptor performance and thereby plant growth. We demonstrate that targeted mutagenesis can decrease or increase the photocycle lifetime of phototropins in vitro and show that these variants can be used to reduce or extend the duration of photoreceptor activation Our findings show that slowing the phototropin photocycle enhanced several light-capturing responses, while accelerating it reduced phototropin's sensitivity for chloroplast accumulation movement. Moreover, plants engineered to have a slow-photocycling variant of phot1 or phot2 displayed increased biomass production under low-light conditions as a consequence of their improved sensitivity. Together, these findings demonstrate the feasibility of engineering photoreceptors to manipulate plant growth and offer additional opportunities to enhance photosynthetic competence, particularly under suboptimal light regimes.

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