Signal Transduction in an Enzymatic Photoreceptor Revealed by Cryo-Electron Microscopy

Phytochromes are essential photoreceptor proteins in plants with homologs in bacteria and fungi that regulate a variety of important environmental responses. They display a reversible photocycle between two distinct states, the red-light absorbing Pr and the far-red light absorbing Pfr, each with its own structure. The reversible Pr to Pfr photoconversion requires covalently bound bilin chromophore and regulates the activity of a C-terminal enzymatic domain, which is usually a histidine kinase (HK). In plants, phytochromes translocate to nucleus where the C-terminal effector domain interacts with protein interaction factors (PIFs) to induce gene expression. In bacteria, the HK phosphorylates a response-regulator (RR) protein triggering downstream gene expression through a two-component signaling pathway. Although plant and bacterial phytochromes share similar structural composition, they have contrasting activity in the presence of light with most BphPs being active in the dark. The molecular mechanism that explains bacterial and plant phytochrome signaling has not been well understood due to limited structures of full-length phytochromes with enzymatic domain resolved at or near atomic resolution in both Pr and Pfr states. Here, we report the first Cryo-EM structures of a wild-type bacterial phytochrome with a HK enzymatic domain, determined in both Pr and Pfr states, between 3.75 and 4.13 Å resolution, respectively. Furthermore, we capture a distinct Pr/Pfr heterodimer of the same protein as potential signal transduction intermediate at 3.75 Å resolution. Our three Cryo-EM structures of the distinct signaling states of BphPs are further reinforced by Cryo-EM structures of the truncated PCM of the same protein determined for the Pr/Pfr heterodimer as well as Pfr state. These structures provide insight into the different light-signaling mechanisms that could explain how bacteria and plants see the light.