Summary
This review examines how fungi detect and respond to light through multiple photoreceptor classes, comparing these mechanisms to vertebrate vision including opsin-based systems. While focused on basic biology in model fungal organisms, it provides foundational context for understanding the evolutionary breadth of light-sensing mechanisms across life forms, with limited direct implications for architectural or healthcare lighting design.
Key Findings
- Fungi possess three groups of photoreceptors: blue light receptors (White Collars, vivid, cryptochromes), red light sensors (phytochromes), and green light sensors/microbial rhodopsins.
- The White Collar Complex (WCC) functions as both photoreceptor and transcription factor, directly binding target genes, while phytochromes signal via mitogen-activated protein kinase cascades.
- Light signalling in fungi regulates asexual sporulation, sexual fruit body formation, pigment and carotenoid production, and secondary metabolite biosynthesis.
Categories
The Science of Light: Reviews fungal photoreceptor biology including opsins, blue/red/green light receptors, and signalling mechanisms, providing comparative context to vertebrate photoreception.
Author(s)
ÖS Bayram, Ö Bayram
Publication Year
2023
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