Cryptochromes are flavoprotein blue light receptors found throughout the biological Kingdom with many important signaling roles. Recently, it has been shown that cryptochromes catalyse the synthesis of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the course of flavin reoxidation after blue light exposure. Although ROS are themselves important cellular regulators, it has remained unclear whether biosynthesis of ROS contributes to cryptochrome signaling. Here we show by fluorescence imaging techniques that ROS accumulates in the plant nucleus within minutes after cryptochrome activation by blue light, resulting in the activation of ROS regulated genes. Mutant alleles of cryptochrome that retain the capacity to synthesize ROS are active in redox regulation even though they have lost the ability to regulate photomorphogenesis. We conclude that ROS formation by cryptochrome has a cellular signaling role that is distinct from the known mechanisms of light induced conformational change regulating growth and development. These results suggest novel optogenetic tools to induce ROS through targeted illumination of cryptochrome. Introduction Cryptochromes are blue light sensing receptors that regulate many aspects of plant growth and development, including de-etiolation, photomorphogenesis, the initiation of flowering, stress response, and hormone signaling (ref). They play a particularly large role in nuclear transcript regulation, with almost 10% of plant genes directly or indirectly under
There are two main types of chlorophyll, chlorophyll a which absorbs wavelengths of 430nm (blue) and 662 (red) and is the main photosynthetic pigment, and chlorophyll b, which doesn’t directly participate in the photosynthetic process, but is capable of donating its energy to chlorophyll a
86. Carotene is a yellow or orange pigment that serves as an accessory to chlorophyll during
The hypothesis that red light would produce more dissolved oxygen was not supported by the results of the experiment. Without having more accurate data it is impossible to say which color light induced its plant to produce the most oxygen. The reason for not having more accurate data is because of the way of testing the dissolved oxygen. By testing with the dissolved oxygen tabs the data could not have been very specific and specific data is important for a good experiment. The way of getting much more accurate data is by testing with the Winkler's method. This way of testing for dissolved oxygen amounts would have not been possible to execute because of the amount of water and the size of tanks used. To test with the Winkler’s method it is necessary to test 200 mL at a time. If this way of testing for
Photodynamic therapy is also referred to as photodynamic action, which refers to photosensitized reactions. 1 This reactions involve exciting oxygen in the cell, which then becomes cytotoxic and destroys the cell, in this case for example a cancerous cell. This began in around the 1960s by R.L. Lipson and S. Schwartz at the Mayo Clinic. The scientists observed that injecting hematoporphyrin allowed for the flurescence of lesions
As part of his work, he succeeded in varying the color of the light emitted by GFP so that different proteins and multiple, simultaneous biological processes could be tracked using GFP. His work that provided a better understanding of the fluorescence properties of GFP and its’ application as a marker. (Ehrenberg, 2008) In 2008, Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, and Roger Tsien were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008. This research and that conducted by other scientists transformed the ability of the scientific community to track cellular movements of diseases such as cancer by using GFP as an intracellular marker. Using a gene that carries instructions to make GFP, scientists can attach glow-in-the-dark tags to selected proteins, either in cells in lab dishes or inside living creatures, to track their expressions and localization. (MacLachlan, 2011).
During testing our developed primers in August 2015, I began work on my Honor’s Thesis to understand mRNA expression changes during a common chemical treatment used by many growers to change the sex of the plant for seed production. Through growing female plants and treating some branches with silver thiosulfate, these plants will produce both male and female flowers, which can be harvested throughout the growing process. These flowers will have RNA extracted at three time points, which will then be processed, sequenced and
During testing our developed primers in June 2015, I began work on my Honor’s Thesis to understand mRNA expression changes during a common chemical treatment used by many growers to change the sex of the plant for seed production. Through growing female plants and treating some branches with silver thiosulfate, these plants will produce both male and female flowers, which can be harvested throughout the growing process. These flowers will be have RNA extracted at three time points, which will
Gibberellin Acid is a plant hormone that can affect plant growth by manipulating the cell division, stem elongation, and even mobilizes food resources within the endosperm to increase seed germination (Wiathrop, 1998). This experiment took place to test the factor of whether or not gibberellin could allow a seed to germinate and grow in the absence of light. Plants were distributed five drops of gibberellin and then placed in the cabinet for a total of three weeks. Each week, we recorded the growth of each plant. As a result of the three weeks, only one of the two hormone-induced plants successfully sprouted to a total of 16.2 centimeters. The other hormone-induced seed showed germination however, resulted to zero vertical growth,
Plant Hormones are small chemical messengers that act as internal signals within a plant. (Campbell et. at., 2011) Plant hormones are also known as Phytochromes. Plants, unlike animals, lack glands that produce and secrete hormones. Instead, each cell is capable of producing hormones (2). For over two millennia, people have observed that one part of
The results support the hypothesis by revealing that there is a correlation between the higher the concentration of Peroxidase, the faster the Enzyme Activity rate is. The more intense the color is, the faster the Enzyme Activity rate is, and base on the graph, since one minute of the experiment, there is already differences in color intensity between all three groups. Group two with the highest concentration of 3.0mL, during the first minute was at the color intensity of four, while the control group with the second highest concentration of 1.5mL was at the color intensity of two, and group one with the lowest concentration of 0.75mL was only at the color intensity of one. As time continue, all three groups rise in color intensity; however,
In Arabidopsis, there are five members belonging to the family of ethylene receptors and they all share have large portion of sequence similarity but also each having aspects that allow them to be differentiated from one another. They all share a N-Terminal potrion which is in close association with the membrane, essential for the sensing of ethylene
Over many years, plants have developed responses to different qualities of light. All of the responses are caused by receptors in the plant. There exist five major families of specialized receptors: cryptochrome, UV-B, phototropin, zeitlupe and phytochrome. Each of the receptors sense specific quality or wavelengths of light. Yet, each of these role varies in different species of plants.
litorea genome coding sequence. The matching genomic sequence with V.litoreea includes prk, pfk, tkt, lhc, thf1 they are genes that play a role in ‘photosynthesis ,carbon fixation , carbohydrate metabolism, thylakoid structure, chaperon activities and chloroplast maintenance processes ‘ [40]. There are also chloroplast-encoded transcripts that are important for the synthesis of chlorophyll a such as cyt F and RuBisCO and D1, D2 and CP43 that work in PSI and PSII center. While other proteins are having unidentified functions. These are important proteins which believed to sustain the kletoplast function.
The light absorbed by photosystem II raised the electron at P680 to a higher energy level. Energy is then transferred to a primary electron acceptor. The electrons are then passed along an electron transport chain to the P700 molecules in photosystem I. These electrons are passed on through electron acceptors that donate the electron to NADP+. . The energy released drive the transfer of electrons in an oxidation-reduction mechanism in which NADP+ is reduced to NADPH. Oxidation occurs when electrons are donated and reduction occurs when electrons are gained. The excess of energy from the oxidation-reduction process generates a proton gradient across the chloroplast membrane and ATP is produced in a process called phosphorylation.
Plants are an important part of the ecosystem. They provide most of the oxygen on Earth and are part of the food chain for animals on land and sea (Miller & Levine, 2006). Plants are unique in their manner of reproduction. Some plants do not produce seeds. They reproduce asexually by vegetative reproduction, producing offspring that are identical to the parent plant (Miller & Levine, 2006, p. 622). Other plants produce seeds and depend on the seed’s survival to reproduce. The seed’s survival is dependent on several environmental factors, such as where the seed grows, presence of birds or other animals that eat the seeds, the temperature, moisture, and nutrient levels of the environment (Quinn, 2005). For a seed to grow and mature