Functional Characterization of HY5 Homolog Genes Involved in Early Light-Signaling in Physcomitrella patens

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The developmental programs of Physcomitrella patens, a basal lineage of land plants, are regulated by phytohormones and light-signaling responses. In this study, our attention was focused on the HY5-family of transcription factors, which are known to play important roles immediately downstream of photoreceptors during the early photomorphogenesis of Arabidopsis thaliana. We retrieved two HY5-homologs, named PpHY5a and PpHY5b, from the whole genome sequence database of P. patens. Arabidopsis transgenic plants overproducing the basic leucine zipper (bZIP) domain of PpHY5a exhibited a phenotype of short hypocotyls, suggesting a functional relationship between PpHY5 and Arabidopsis HY5. A loss-of-function Δhy5a Δhy5b double mutant was defective in the vigorous protrusion of caulonema cells from the protonema networks of P. patens under light and dark conditions. These results suggest that the function of HY5-homologs in P. patens is evolutionarily conserved, and is implicated in a process of caulonema development.