THE ROLE OF COP1 IN LIGHT CONTROL OF ARABIDOPSIS SEEDLING DEVELOPMENT

The Arabidopsis seedling can follow two contrasting developmental prog rammes, photomorphogenesis in light and skotomorphogenesis in darkness , CONSTITUTION PHOTOMORPHOGENIC I (COP1) is an essential regulatory ge ne required for repression of seedling photomorphogenic development in darkness. Recent mutational and overexpression analyses of the COP1 g ene suggest a central role for COP1 in light control of seedling devel opment and point to functional implications of its structural domains, Cell biological studies of COP1 have provided a clue to how Light reg ulates the repressive activity of COP1 and thus seedling development.