For a research project, we are tasked with investigating the photoacclimation of greenhouse crops under varying light conditions (i.e. light quality, intensity, and photoperiod). Besides measuring growth/development and phenolic compounds of the plants, i thought it would be interesting to measure the effect of light on the amount of photoreceptors in the plants. Specifically phytochromes, cryptochromes and phototropins. Is there an easy way to measure this? (either destructively or non-destructively)
One of the traditional methods for quantification of phytochromes was reported by Shimazaki et al. (1983), using ELISA with rabbit polyclonal and mouse monoclonal antibodies to phytochrome, which have been adapted for quantitation of phytochrome in crude plant extracts. Other option consists of direct in vivo measurements by 2-filter difference spectrophotometry as described by Klein et al. (1967). For phototropin proteins, immunodetection was also performed with polyclonal antibodies as described by Takemiya et al. (2005).
Klein, W. H., Edwards, J. L., & Shropshire Jr, W. (1967). Spectrophotometric measurements of phytochrome in vivo and their correlation with photomorphogenic responses of Phaseolus. Plant Physiology, 42(2), 264-270.
Shimazaki, Y., Cordonnier, M. M., & Pratt, L. H. (1983). Phytochrome quantitation in crude extracts of Avena by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with monoclonal antibodies. Planta, 159(6), 534-544.
Takemiya, A., Inoue, S. I., Doi, M., Kinoshita, T., & Shimazaki, K. I. (2005). Phototropins promote plant growth in response to blue light in low light environments. The Plant Cell, 17(4), 1120-1127.
Hope it helps!
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