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The phototropins are flavoprotein kinases that control phototropic bending, light-induced chloroplast movement, and stomatal opening in plants. Two flavin mononucleotide binding light, oxygen, or voltage (LOV) domains are the sites for initial photochemistry in these blue light photoreceptors. We have determined the steady state, photoexcited crystal structure of a flavin-bound LOV domain. The structure reveals a unique photochemical switch in the flavin binding pocket in which the absorption of light drives the formation of a reversible covalent bond between a highly conserved Cys residue and the flavin cofactor. This provides a molecular picture of a cysteinyl-flavin covalent adduct, the presumed signaling species that leads to phototropin kinase activation and subsequent signal transduction. We identify closely related LOV domains in two eubacterial proteins that suggests the light-induced conformational change evident in this structure is an ancient biomolecular response to light, arising before the appearance of plants. INTRODUCTIONAt least nine photoreceptors that control plant growth and development have been identified in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis Genome Initiative, 2000), and many genetic and biochemical interactions between these photoreceptors and their downstream signaling partners have been established (reviewed by Singhal et al., 1999). However, the question of how a light signal is transduced by plant photoreceptors at the structural level remains unexplored. Light, oxygen, or voltage (LOV) domains, a subset of the Per-ARNT-Sim (PAS) domain superfamily (Lagarias et al., 1995;Taylor and Zhulin, 1999), bind a single molecule of flavin mononucleotide (FMN) (Christie et al., 1999) and function as sites for blue light absorption and initial photochemistry in the phototropin family of photoreceptors (phot1 and phot2) (Huala et al., 1997;Christie et al., 1998). The phototropins are Ser/Thr kinases that contain two N-terminal LOV domains (LOV1 and LOV2) (Huala et al., 1997), autophosphorylate in response to the absorption of blue light (Christie et al., 1998), and control phototropism, light-induced chloroplast movement, and stomatal opening (Huala et al., 1997;Christie et al., 1998;Jarillo et al., 2001;Kagawa et al., 2001;Kinoshita et al., 2001). The highly homologous phot1 and phot2 photoreceptors exhibit fluence-dependent functional overlap in controlling these physiologically distinct processes , as shown in Figure 1.Classic experiments by Briggs and colleagues (1957) demonstrated that phototropism is a direct result of lateral auxin transport away from the source of light. Chloroplast movement is mediated by microtubules and microfilaments of the cytoskeleton (Sato et al., 2001), and stomatal opening is controlled by the activation of a membrane-bound H ϩ -ATPase and subsequent transport of K ϩ into the guard cells (Schroeder et al., 2001). Thus, phot1 and phot2 affect at least three distinct cellular processes: auxin transport, cytoskeleton-mediated organelle motility, and ion transport. However, the...

For single-cell and multicellular systems to survive, they must accurately sense and respond to their cellular and extracellular environment. Light is a nearly ubiquitous environmental factor, and many species have evolved the capability to respond to this extracellular stimulus. Numerous photoreceptors underlie the activation of light-sensitive signal transduction cascades controlling these responses. Here, we review the properties of the light, oxygen, or voltage (LOV) family of blue-light photoreceptor domains, a subset of the Per-ARNT-Sim (PAS) superfamily. These flavin-binding domains, first identified in the higher-plant phototropins, are now shown to be present in plants, fungi, and bacteria. Notably, LOV domains are coupled to a wide array of other domains, including kinases, phosphodiesterases, F-box domains, STAS domains, and zinc fingers, which suggests that the absorption of blue light by LOV domains regulates the activity of these structurally and functionally diverse domains. LOV domains contain a conserved molecular volume extending from the flavin cofactor, which is the locus for light-driven structural change, to the molecular surface. We discuss the role of this conserved volume of structure in LOV-regulated processes.

Per-Arnt-Sim (PAS) domains occur in proteins from all kingdoms of life. In the bacterial kingdom, PAS domains are commonly positioned at the amino terminus of signaling proteins such as sensor histidine kinases, cyclic-di-GMP synthases/hydrolases, and methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins. Although these domains are highly divergent at the primary sequence level, the structures of dozens of PAS domains across a broad section of sequence space have been solved, revealing a conserved three-dimensional architecture. An all-versus-all alignment of 63 PAS structures demonstrates that the PAS domain family forms structural clades on the basis of two principal variables: (a) topological location inside or outside the plasma membrane and (b) the class of small molecule that they bind. The binding of a chemically diverse range of small-molecule metabolites is a hallmark of the PAS domain family. PAS ligand binding either functions as a primary cue to initiate a cellular signaling response or provides the domain with the capacity to respond to secondary physical or chemical signals such as gas molecules, redox potential, or photons. This review synthesizes the current state of knowledge of the structural foundations and evolution of ligand recognition and binding by PAS domains.

Uncovering the quantitative laws that govern the growth and division of single cells remains a major challenge. Using a unique combination of technologies that yields unprecedented statistical precision, we find that the sizes of individual Caulobacter crescentus cells increase exponentially in time. We also establish that they divide upon reaching a critical multiple (≈1.8) of their initial sizes, rather than an absolute size. We show that when the temperature is varied, the growth and division timescales scale proportionally with each other over the physiological temperature range. Strikingly, the cell-size and division-time distributions can both be rescaled by their mean values such that the conditionspecific distributions collapse to universal curves. We account for these observations with a minimal stochastic model that is based on an autocatalytic cycle. It predicts the scalings, as well as specific functional forms for the universal curves. Our experimental and theoretical analysis reveals a simple physical principle governing these complex biological processes: a single temperature-dependent scale of cellular time governs the stochastic dynamics of growth and division in balanced growth conditions. single-cell dynamics | cell-to-cell variability | exponential growth | Hinshelwood cycle | Arrhenius law

The phototropins constitute an important class of plant photoreceptor kinases that control a range of physiological responses, including phototropism, light-directed chloroplast movement, and light-induced stomatal opening. The LOV2 domain of phototropin binds a molecule of flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and undergoes a photocycle involving light-driven covalent adduct formation between a conserved cysteine residue and the C(4a) atom of FMN. This product state promotes C-terminal kinase activation and downstream signal transduction. Here, we report the primary photophysics and photochemistry of LOV2 domains of phototropin 1 of Avena sativa (oat) and of the phy3 photoreceptor of Adiantum capillus-veneris (maidenhair fern). In agreement with earlier reports [Swartz, T. E., et al. (2001) J. Biol. Chem. 276, 36493-36500], we find that the FMN triplet state is the reactive species from which the photoreaction occurs. We demonstrate that the triplet state is the primary photoproduct in the LOV2 photocycle, generated at 60% efficiency. No spectroscopically distinguishable intermediates precede the FMN triplet on the femtosecond to nanosecond time scale, indicating that it is formed directly via intersystem crossing (ISC) from the singlet state. Our results indicate that the majority of the FMN triplets in the LOV2 domain exist in the protonated form. We propose a reaction mechanism that involves excited-state proton transfer, on the nanosecond time scale or faster, from the sulfhydryl group of the conserved cysteine to the N5 atom of FMN. This event promotes adduct formation by increasing the electrophilicity of C(4a) and subsequent nucleophilic attack by the cysteine's thiolate anion. Comparison to free FMN in solution shows that the protein environment of LOV2 increases the ISC rate of FMN by a factor of 2.4, thus improving the yield of the cysteinyl-flavin adduct and the efficiency of phototropin-mediated signaling processes.

LOV domains are protein photosensors conserved in bacteria, archaea, plants and fungi that detect blue light via a flavin cofactor. In the bacterial kingdom, LOV domains are present in both chemotrophic and phototrophic species, where they are found N-terminally of signaling and regulatory domains such as sensor histidine kinases, diguanylate cyclases/phosphodiesterases, DNA-binding domains, and σ factor regulators. In this review, we describe the current state of knowledge on the function of bacterial LOV proteins, the structural basis of LOV domain-mediated signal transduction, and the use of LOV domains as genetically-encoded photoswitches in synthetic biology.

Summary Interacting proteins typically coevolve, and the identification of coevolving amino acids can pinpoint residues required for interaction specificity. This approach often assumes that an interface-disrupting mutation in one protein drives selection of a compensatory mutation in its partner during evolution. However, this model requires a non-functional intermediate state prior to the compensatory change. Alternatively, a mutation in one protein could first broaden its specificity, allowing changes in its partner, followed by a specificity-restricting mutation. Using bacterial toxin-antitoxin systems, we demonstrate the plausibility of this second, promiscuity-based model. By screening large libraries of interface mutants, we show that toxins and antitoxins with high specificity are frequently connected in sequence space to more promiscuous variants that can serve as intermediates during a reprogramming of interaction specificity. We propose that the abundance of promiscuous variants promotes the expansion and diversification of toxin-antitoxin systems and other paralogous protein families during evolution.