Smith H
Department of Biology, University of Leicester, UK.
Nature. 2000 Oct 5;407(6804):585-91. doi: 10.1038/35036500.
For plants, the sensing of light in the environment is as important as vision is for animals. Fluctuations in light can be crucial to competition and survival. One way plants sense light is through the phytochromes, a small family of diverse photochromic protein photoreceptors whose origins have been traced to the photosynthetic prokaryotes. During their evolution, the phytochromes have acquired sophisticated mechanisms to monitor light. Recent advances in understanding the molecular mechanisms of phytochromes and their significance to evolutionary biology make possible an interim synthesis of this rapidly advancing branch of photobiology.
对于植物而言，感知环境中的光与动物的视觉一样重要。光照的波动对竞争和生存可能至关重要。植物感知光的一种方式是通过光敏色素，这是一个由多种光致变色蛋白质光感受器组成的小家族，其起源可追溯到光合原核生物。在进化过程中，光敏色素获得了监测光的复杂机制。在理解光敏色素的分子机制及其对进化生物学的意义方面的最新进展，使得对光生物学这个快速发展的分支进行阶段性综合成为可能。
