Aureochromes – Blue Light Receptors

Abstract

A variety of living organisms including bacteria, fungi, animals, and plants use blue light (BL) to adapt to changing ambient light. Photosynthetic forms (plants and algae) require energy of light for photosynthesis, movements, development, and regulation of activity. Several complex light-sensitive systems evolved in eukaryotic cells to use the information of light efficiently with photoreceptors selectively absorbing various segments of the solar spectrum, being the first components in the light signal transduction chain. They are most diverse in algae. Photosynthetic stramenopiles, which received chloroplasts from red algae during secondary symbiosis, play an important role in ecosystems and aquaculture, being primary producers. These taxa acquired the ability to use BL for regulation of such processes as phototropism, chloroplast photo-relocation movement, and photomorphogenesis. A new type of BL receptor - aureochrome (AUREO) - was identified in Vaucheria frigida in 2007. AUREO consists of two domains: bZIP (basic-region leucine zipper) domain and LOV (light-oxygen-voltage-sensing) domain, and thus this photoreceptor is a BL-sensitive transcription factor. This review presents current data on the structure, mechanisms of action, and biochemical features of aureochromes.

The Aureochrome Photoreceptor PtAUREO1a Is a Highly Effective Blue Light Switch in Diatoms

“…For a photosynthetic organism, it is essential to determine and respond to changes in light quality and quantity. As land plants do, diatoms can sense light intensity via the activity of their photosystems and additionally possess photoreceptors that allow the sensing of both light intensity as well as wavelengths, including the diatom phytochromes (DPH) ( Fortunato et al., 2016 ), different cryptochromes (cry) ( König et al., 2017 ), heliorhodopsins ( Pushkarev et al., 2018 ), and aureochromes ( Kroth et al., 2017 ; Matiiv and Chekunova, 2018 ). Aureochromes have first been described in the siphonous xanthophyte Vaucheria frigida ( Takahashi et al., 2007 ).…”

miR8181 is Involved in the Cell Growth and Development Regulation of Saccharina Japonica

“…The responses of photoreceptors to light wavelength, direction and duration of light illumination are important for marine plant growth and development [1,2,3]. Similar to green algae, photosynthetic stramenopiles acquire the blue light responses of phototropism, chloroplast photorelocation and photomorphogenesis from secondary symbiosis [4]. Aureochrome is classi ed as new type of blue light receptor in photosynthetic stramenopiles [5], and it consists of a basic region/leucine zipper (bZIP) domain at the N-terminus and a light-oxygen-voltage (LOV) domain at the C-terminus.…”

The 40S Ribosomal Protein S6 Response to Blue Light by Interaction with SjAUREO in Saccharina japonica

“…With the characteristic of inching in the lower coastal environments, it utilizes specific wavelengths of the solar spectrum [4] for growth and development. Among the different light wavelengths, blue light which falls in the short wavelength region is predominant under the sea [5,6,7]. Photoreceptors are important proteins in most plants that are useful for adapting their physiology to the environmental light conditions, which can perceive and transfer light information to the downstream components [8,9].…”

“…Photosynthetic stramenopile BL receptor aureochrome (AUREO) was undefined until its discovery in 2007 from the photosynthetic stramenopile alga, Vaucheria [18]. Aureochromes, a kind of BL receptor different from cryptochrome and phototropin, followed by discovered in yellow-green alga Chattonella antiqua [19], Saccharina japonica [20] and Phaeodactylum tricornutum [21,22], and therefore also represents a BL receptor in photosynthetic stramenopiles [7,23]. So far, there are no reports of the presence of aureochromes in green algae.…”