Ultraviolet-A1 radiation induced a more favorable light-intercepting leaf-area display than blue light and promoted...

Plants adjust their morphology in response to light environment by sensing an array of light cues. Though the wavelengths of ultraviolet-A1 radiation (UV-A1, 350-400 nm) are close to blue light (B, 400-500 nm) and share same flavoprotein photoreceptors, it remains poorly understood how plant responses to UV-A1 radiation could differ from those to B. We initially grown tomato plants under monochromatic red light (R, 660 nm) as control, subsequently transferred them to four dichromatic light treatments containing ~20 µmol m^-2  s^-1 of UV-A1 radiation, peaking at 370 nm (UV-A₃₇₀ ) or 400 nm (V₄₀₀ ), or B (450 nm, at ~20 or 1.5 µmol m^-2  s^-1 ), with same total photon irradiance (~200 μmol m^-2  s^-1 ). We show that UV-A₃₇₀ radiation was the most effective in inducing light-intercepting leaf-area display formation, resulting in larger leaf area and more shoot biomass, while it triggered weaker and later transcriptome-wide responses than B. Mechanistically, UV-A₃₇₀ -promoted leaf-area display response was apparent in less than 12 h and appeared as very weakly related to transcriptome level regulation, which likely depended on the auxin transportation and cell wall acidification. This study revealed wavelength-specific responses within UV-A/blue region challenging usual assumptions that the role of UV-A1 radiation function similarly as blue light in mediating plant processes.