Abstract
Light is the ultimate energy source for photo-autotrophs on earth. For green plants, however, it can also be toxic under certain stressful environmental conditions and at critical developmental stages. Anthocyanins, a class of flavonoids, act as an effective screening mechanism that allows plant survival and proliferation under occasional periods of harmful irradiation through modulation of light absorption. Apart from light-sensing through photoreceptors such as phytochrome and cryptochrome, plants use the photosynthetic electron transfer (PeT) chain to integrate light information. The redox status of the plastoquinone (PQ) pool of the PeT chain regulates anthocyanin biosynthesis genes, together with the plant hormone ethylene and plant hormone-like sugars. A complex signaling apparatus in acyanic cells appears to transduce information to cyanic cells to regulate anthocyanin production through an intercellular signaling pathway that remains largely uncharacterized. This review will highlight recent advances in this field and their implications for the regulation of anthocyanin pigmentation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Plant Signaling and Behavior |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2011 Jan |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the Crop Functional Genomics Center (grant no. CG2151) and the NRF (grant no. 2009-008146) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, Korea, and by a Korea Research Foundation Fellowship (grant no. KRF-2006-C00083 to P.K.D.).
Keywords
- Anthocyanin induction
- Ethylene
- Light
- Mesophyll-derived signal
- Photosynthesis
- Sugar
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Plant Science