Song,
Pill-Soon1,2, Park, Chung-Mo2,
Soh, Moon-Soo2, Shin, Byung Chul3,
Choi, Giltsu2 and Kim, Jeong-Il1
University of Nebraska-Lincoln1
Kumho Life & Enviorn. Science Laboratory2
Kwangju Institute of Science & Technology3
Abstract-
Believe it or not, like our eyes plants can "see"
colors of Sun's visible wavelength light. The human eye vision
is based on the photochemical reaction of the visual pigment rhodopsin.
For plants, their "visual"
pigments are phytochromes. Phytochromes mediate seed germination, flower
blooming, stem and leaf growth, and many more, in response to specific
wavelength light, especially 660 nm red and 730 nm far-red light. These
light-mediated responses are referred to as photomorphogenesis. At the
cellular and molecular levels, the phytochrome-mediated light signal
transduction involves activation/regulation of the expression of a number
of specific genes which underscores plants' growth and development
including circadian rhythm. In this School Lecture, I will discuss the
structure and function of phytochromes, and will review most recent
research in this field.
Keywords: photomorphogenesis,
phytochromes, light-signal, plant growth
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