Ashutosh Pudasaini, Jae Sung Shim ... Brian D Zoltowski
In the plant circadian clock photoreceptor ZEITLUPE, evolutionarily selected residues distinguish photocycle kinetics and allosteric signal transduction pathways to permit proper circadian timing.
Avia Mizrachi, Shiri Graff van Creveld ... Assaf Vardi
Single-cell analysis of the chloroplast redox response to high light and oxidative stress revealed light-dependent heterogeneity, and was linked to cell fate determination within isogenic diatom populations.
Halving dosage of the Smith-Magenis syndrome responsible gene Rai1 in the mouse greatly amplifies the direct, suppressing effects of light on active-wake behavior through increased activation of the ventral-subparaventricular zone.
Light absorption by the algal transcription factor Aureochrome 1a causes dimerization at the light-oxygen-voltage (LOV) sensing domain, which has implications for the design of synthetic photoreceptors for optogenetics.
TOR kinase guides the transition of plant stem cells from the dormant embryonic state to the active adult state by integrating light and metabolic signals.
Three-dimensional imaging and automated, brain-wide cell counting yield new insight into the diversity of neurons that connect the brain to the spinal cord and their different sensitivity to spinal cord damage.
Geoffry A Davis, Atsuko Kanazawa ... David M Kramer
Storage of solar energy in the thylakoid electrical field by photosynthesis in vivo can substantially destabilize charge-separated states in photosystem II, leading to singlet oxygen production and photodamage, contributing to loss of productivity, especially under fluctuating light experienced in the field.
The evolution of the light-sensitive visual pigment rhodopsin involved functional tradeoffs that may have sacrificed rod photosensitivity for active-state protein stability to mitigate phototoxicity in tetrapods, but not in fishes.
The discovery of a fluorescent protein that can be rapidly switched between long-lived ‘on’ and ‘off’ states will lead to a new generation of super-resolution imaging experiments on living cells.
