Different blue-light requirement for the accumulation of transcripts from nuclear genes for thylakoid proteins in Nicotiana tabacum and Lycopersicon esculentum.

We have isolated recombinant lambda gt11 phages which carry cDNA clones for the major light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b-binding proteins of photosystem I (LHCPI) and II (LHCPII), subunit II of photosystem I, a chlorophyll a/b-binding protein of photosystem II (CP24), the Rieske iron-sulphur protein of the cytochrome b6/f complex, and the 33, 23 and 16 kDa proteins of the water-oxidizing complex of photosystem II from Nicotiana tabacum. The nucleotide sequences of cDNA clones encoding the precursors for LHCPI and the FeS protein are presented. If tobacco or tomato seedlings, or seedlings of a phytochrome-deficient aurea mutant of tomato which lacks more than 95% of the phytochrome of the isogenic wild type, are kept in blue light, the transcript level of each of these genes is higher than in seedlings grown in red light suggesting the involvement of a blue-UVA-light photoreceptor. In the case of LHCPI, a 1 min blue-light pulse applied to red-light-grown seedlings is sufficient to increase the transcript levels to those present in blue-light-grown seedlings, whereas almost no increase is observed for transcripts encoding the FeS and 33 kDa proteins. If dark-grown tomato seedlings receive a single far-red-light pulse, significant stimulation is detected for LHCPI transcripts, whereas transcripts encoding the FeS and 33 kDa proteins are not stimulated. It is concluded that the lower light requirement for the increase in the LHCPI transcript level is not specific for one of the light-dependent signal transduction chains.