Blue light is required for survival of the tomato phytochrome-deficient aurea mutant and the expression of four nuclear genes coding for plastidic proteins.
When dark-grown aurea mutant tomato seedlings which lack more than 95% of the phytochrome present in isogenic wild-type seedlings are kept in white or blue light, four nuclear-encoded transcripts coding for plastidic proteins (the light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b-binding protein of photosystem I and II [cab-PSII], plastocyanin and subunit 2 of photosystem I) are present in comparable amounts. These transcript levels in red light are strongly reduced in aurea seedlings when compared with those of wild type. Thus, blue light is required for normal expression of these genes in the mutant, while red light alone is not sufficient. Red light-grown aurea seedlings are very sensitive to blue light, even 10 minutes of blue light every day suffices to cause a measurable increase in cab-PSII transcript level. The action of blue light on the expression of cab-PSII in the mutant is under phytochrome control. After 8 days of blue light, phytochrome is almost as effective in inducing cab-PSII mRNA as in the isogenic wild type, whereas after 8 days of red light, only a small phytochrome response was observed in the mutant. It is concluded that blue light sensitizes the mutant to the residual phytochrome which allows normal gene expression and survival of the mutant under daylight conditions.