Chinese Bulletin of Botany ›› 2015, Vol. 50 ›› Issue (2): 241-254.DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1259.2015.00241

• SPECIAL TOPICS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Research Progress in Phosphorylation Modification of Phytochrome Signaling

Jing Yue, Liping Guan, Siyuan Meng, Jing Zhang, Suiwen Hou*   

  1. MOE Key Laboratory of Cell Activities and Stress Adaptations, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000
  • Received:2014-08-06 Revised:2014-11-02 Online:2015-03-01 Published:2015-04-10

Abstract: Light is the unique source of energy for plants. Plants have evolved a variety of photoreceptors to sense light information. The elements in the light signaling pathway are mainly regulated by several post-translational modifications such as phosphorylation and dephosphorylation. Photochromes, the known auto-phosphorylating serine/threonine kinases, can be dephosphorylated by a few protein phosphatases. Investigation of the autophosphorylation sites in phytochrome A (phyA) and phytochrome B (phyB) has revealed that the autophosphorylation of phy is essential for their function and plays a significant role in regulating phytochrome-mediated signaling. The phosphorylation of phyto- chrome-interacting factor (PIF) induced by the light-activated photoreceptor is critical for PIF degradation and photomorphogenesis initiation. This review focuses on the recent progress in understanding phosphorylation modification in phytochrome signaling, providing valuable information for further research in this field.