Chloroplasts in C3 grasses move in response to blue-light.

key messageBrachypodium distachyon is a good model for studying chloropla st movements in the crop plants, wheat, rye and barley. The movements are activated only by blue light, similar to Arabidopsis. Chloroplast translocations are ubiquitous in photosynthetic organisms. On the one hand, they serve to optimize energy capture under limiting light, on the other hand, they minimize potential photodamage to the photosynthetic apparatus in excess light. In higher plants chloroplast movements are mediated by phototropins (phots), blue light receptors that also control other light acclimation responses. So far, Arabidopsis thaliana has been the main model for studying the mechanism of blue light signaling to chloroplast translocations in terrestrial plants. Here, we propose Brachypodium distachyon as a model in research into chloroplast movements in C3 cereals. Brachypodium chloroplasts respond to light in a similar way to those in Arabidopsis. The amino acid sequence of Brachypodium PHOT1 is 79.3% identical, and that of PHOT2 is 73.6% identical to the sequence of the corresponding phototropin in Arabidopsis. Both phototropin1 and 2 are expressed in Brachypodium, as shown using quantitative real-time PCR. Intriguingly, the light-expression pattern of BradiPHOT1 and BradiPHOT2 is the opposite of that for Arabidopsis phototropins, suggesting potential unique light signaling in C3 grasses. To investigate if Brachypodium is a good model for studying grass chloroplast movements we analyzed these movements in the leaves of three C3 crop grasses, namely wheat, rye and barley. Similarly to Brachypodium, chloroplasts only respond to blue light in all these species.