The main objective of our work is to understand how light signals are translated by photoreceptors and the downstream components involved.
Plants as sessile organisms have acquired a very sophisticated adaptive development that allows them to adjust the phenotype to the environment in which they are found. Light is the external stimulus that most influences plant development and triggers a set of responses called photomorphogenesis (deetiolation), vital for the establishing of plant autotrophy. In the dark, photomorphogenesis is suppressed. The light is perceived by different photoreceptors, among which phytochromes perceive red and far red light and the cryptochromes perceive blue light. Photoreceptors act through various molecular mechanisms such as translocation to the nucleus and interaction with transcription factors, interaction with proteins involved in degradation pathways, and through post-translational modifications such as phosphorylation. Several photoreceptors are regulated by phosphorylation and are capable of inducing phosphorylation / dephosphorylation of other proteins. Our objective is to analyze how photoreceptors are directly or indirectly involved in regulating kinases and / or phosphatases and what would be the biological relevance of these post-translational modifications in vivo. For this, in the laboratory we use the combination of molecular techniques, proteomics studies, and analysis of plant mutants and overexpressant phentypes.