Characterization of phytochrome A homologous gene from holoparasitic plant Orobanche minor

Abstract

We are interested in how different are the light signaling pathways in non-photosynthetic plants from those in photosynthetic plants? In this report, phytochrome A (PHYA) homologous cDNA was cloned from a holoparasitic plant Orobanche minor which was parasitic on the root of red clover grown in the field. RT-PCR and RACE methods with degenerated primers were adopted to clone the OmPHYA. OmPHYA showed about 70% sequence similarity with PHYA from Arabidopsis thaliana. The expression of OmPHYA in the dark-grown plants was higher than that of light-grown plants. Interestingly, transient expression analysis revealed that the subcellular localization of OmPHYA:GFP under the continuous far-red light was determined in the chloroplasts while it was localized at cytoplasm in the dark condition in the protoplast prepared from A. thaliana.