Light responses articles from across Nature Portfolio

The authors here investigate information integration in plants using light and nutrient stimuli and identify a novel regulation pathway towards photoreceptor-regulated stem growth.

Photoinhibition of photosystem I and differential damage of FeS clusters under high light levels are natural phenomena in angiosperms that control electron flow to molecular oxygen while maintaining optimal carbon dioxide assimilation.

Cheng et al. find that priming shade treatment can be memorized and triggers faster hypocotyl elongation upon subsequent exposure to shade. During shade memory, PIF7 and REF6 are required to maintain low levels of H3K27me3 and hyper-induction of shade-memory-related genes.

Differently from Arabidopsis, rice UV-B photoreceptors show a non-classical localization mechanism and protein interaction mode to mediate UV-B responses, suggestive of evolutionary divergence of UV-B light signaling between monocot and dicot plants.

Here we show that photoexcited blue light receptor cryptochrome 2 (CRY2) mediates blue light-induced liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) of CRY2–SPA1–FIO1 trimolecular complexes. This activates the N⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) writer FIONA1 (FIO1) to methylate mRNAs that encode chloroplast proteins, which are required for maintaining chlorophyll homeostasis and photosynthesis in response to light.

Organisms have developed specialized and intricate mechanisms to cope with environmental threats that depend on their natural habitat and ability to move. Arabidopsis demonstrates an impressive adaptation using cryptochrome 1 to maintain genomic stability through a blue-light-mediated process that involves the recruitment of repair proteins to double-strand breaks.

Intracellular H₂O₂ has emerged as a central player in signalling and stress acclimation, but how specificity is achieved remains elusive. Cytosolic peroxiredoxins play a decisive role as they sense H₂O₂ and transmit the oxidation signal through the formation of disulfide bridges, leading to stomatal closure that reduces pathogen entry.

Regulation of organ growth involves multiple pathways that coordinate cell number and size in a process that is highly dependent on nutrient supply and energy levels. The simplicity of the Arabidopsis root tip provides a suitable model for the genetic dissection of plant organ growth regulation.