New insights into the mechanisms of phytochrome-cryptochrome coaction

Plants perceive and respond to light signals by multiple sensory photoreceptors, including phytochromes and cryptochromes, which absorb different wavelengths of light to regulate genome expression and plant development. Photophysiological analyses have long revealed the coordinated actions of different photoreceptors, a phenomenon referred to as the photoreceptor coaction. The mechanistic explanations of photoreceptor coactions are not fully understood. The function of direct protein-protein interaction of phytochromes and cryptochromes and common signaling molecules of these photoreceptors, such as SPA1/COP1 E3 ubiquitin ligase complex and bHLH transcription factors PIFs, would partially explain phytochrome-cryptochrome coactions. In addition, newly discovered proteins that block cryptochrome photodimerization or catalyze cryptochrome phosphorylation may also participate in the phytochrome and cryptochrome coaction. This Tansley insight, which is not intended to make a comprehensive review of the studies of photoreceptor coactions, attempts to highlight those recent findings and their possible roles in the photoreceptor coaction.