Are retinal and retinal-binding proteins involved in stomatal response to blue light?

Stomata respond to blue light and it is generally believed that the photoreceptor for this response is located inside the guard cells. Only a small number of blue light photoreceptors have been identified so far, namely cryptochromes and phototropins, and they show overlapping functions in regulating many different responses to light. The possibility that plants may possess other receptors regulating blue light responses under different light conditions cannot be excluded. In this paper we show the presence of two retinal-binding proteins in Commelina communis and we report the identification of retinal, a chromophore usually bound to the photoreceptor rhodopsin and previously identified in algae and other higher plants. We show that, under our experimental conditions, stomata open promptly when exposed to blue light and we demonstrated that this response is dependent on retinal. We hypothesise that rhodopsin-like retinal-binding proteins might be involved in stomatal response to blue light.