Blue Light Reception in Phycomyces: Red Light Sensitization in madC Mutants

Sporangiophores of the zygomycete fungus Phycomyces blakesleeanus are sensitive to near UV and blue light. The quantum effectiveness of yellow and red light is more than 6 orders of magnitude below that of near UV or blue light. Phototropism mutants with a defect in the gene madC are about 10⁶ times less sensitive to blue light than the wild type. These mutants respond, however, to yellow and red light when the long wavelength light is given simultaneously with actinic blue light. In the presence of yellow or red light the photogravitropic threshold of madC mutants is lowered about 100-fold though the yellow and the red light alone are phototropically ineffective. A step-up of the fluence rate of broad-band red light (> 600 nm) from 6 × 10^?3 to 6W m^?2 elicits, in mutant C 148 madC, a transient deceleration of the growth rate. The growth rate of the wild type is not affected by the same treatment. The results are interpreted in terms of a red light absorbing intermediate of the blue light photoreceptor of Phycomyces. The intermediate should be short-lived in the wild type and should accumulate in madC mutants.