Abstract
We are interested in how different are the light signaling pathways in non-photosynthetic plants from those in photosynthetic plants. We had cloned phytochrome A (PHYA) homologous cDNA (OmPHYA) from holoparasitic Orobanche minor. It was found that 26 amino acids, which are well conserved in other phyAs from photosynthetic plants, had been substituted in OmphyA. In this study, OmphyA was expressed in protoplasts prepared from Arabidopsis phyA null mutant, phyA-211, and the effects of the transient expression on the expression of phyA-regulated genes were relatively quantified using real-time RT-PCR. Under continuous far-red light, OmphyA induced the expression of two transcriptional factors, HY5 and CO. But expression of other three transcriptional factors, CCA1, LHY and RPT2, and four photosynthesis-related genes, FtsH, Lhcb2, MgCh and PSY, was not induced.
