New Constitutively Active Phytochromes Exhibit Light-Independent Signaling Activity

Plant phytochromes are photoreceptors that mediate a variety of photomorphogenic responses. There are two spectral photoisomers, the red light-absorbing Pr and far-red light-absorbing Pfr forms, and the photoreversible transformation between the two forms is important for the functioning of phytochromes. In this study, we isolated a Tyr-268-to-Val mutant of Avena sativa phytochrome A (AsYVA) that displayed little photoconversion. Interestingly, transgenic plants of AsYVA showed light-independent phytochrome signaling with a constitutive photomorphogenic (cop) phenotype that is characterized by shortened hypocotyls and open cotyledons in the dark. In addition, the corresponding Tyr-303-to-Val mutant of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) phytochrome B (AtYVB) exhibited nuclear localization and interaction with phytochrome-interacting factor 3 (PIF3) independently of light, conferring a constitutive photomorphogenic development to its transgenic plants, which is comparable to the first constitutively active version of phytochrome B (YHB; Tyr-276-to-His mutant). We also found that chromophore ligation was required for the light-independent interaction of AtYVB with PIF3. Moreover, we demonstrated that AtYVB did not exhibit phytochrome B activity when it was localized in the cytosol by fusion with the nuclear export signal and that AsYVA exhibited the full activity of phytochrome A when localized in the nucleus by fusion with the nuclear localization signal. Furthermore, the corresponding Tyr-269-to-Val mutant of Arabidopsis phytochrome A (AtYVA) exhibited similar cop phenotypes in transgenic plants to AsYVA. Collectively, these results suggest that the conserved Tyr residues in the chromophore-binding pocket play an important role during the Pr-to-Pfr photoconversion of phytochromes, providing new constitutively active alleles of phytochromes by the Tyr-to-Val mutation.