Phytochrome A Regulates Carbon Flux in Dark Grown Tomato Seedlings

Phytochromes comprise a small family of photoreceptors with which plants gather environmental information that they use to make developmental decisions, from germination to photomorphogenesis to fruit development. Most phytochromes are activated by red light and de-activated by far-red light, but phytochrome A (phyA) is responsive to both and plays an important role during the well-studied transition of seedlings from dark to light growth. The role of phytochromes during skotomorphogenesis (dark development) prior to reaching light, however, has received considerably less attention although previous studies have suggested that phytochrome must play a role even in the dark. We profiled proteomic and transcriptomic seedling responses in tomato during the transition from dark to light growth and found that phyA participates in the regulation of carbon flux through major primary metabolic pathways, such as glycolysis, beta-oxidation, and the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. Additionally, phyA is involved in the attenuation of root growth soon after reaching light, possibly via control of sucrose allocation throughout the seedling by fine-tuning the expression levels of several sucrose transporters of the SWEET gene family even before the seedling reaches the light. Presumably, by participating in the control of major metabolic pathways, phyA sets the stage for photomorphogenesis for the dark grown seedling in anticipation of light.