Abstract: It has been reported that pigmentation in plants is stimulated by light and cytokinin (CTK); however, the signaling pathways and the relationship between light and CTK involved in the regulation of anthocyanin accumulation remain to be elucidated. We investigated (i) the role of blue light (BL) and CTK in anthocyanin accumulation ; and (ii) the relationship between BL and CTK in wild type (WT) and hy4 mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana. Two-d-old seedlings grown on medium with or without kinetin (KT) or zeatin (ZT) in darkness were irradiated using BL at different fluence rates for 3 d before the anthocyanin content was determined using a spectrophotometric method. Anthocyanin accumulation was strongly induced by BL in WT seedlings but not in hy4 seedlings, which demonstrated that CRY1 is the main photoreceptor for BL. Both KT and ZT enhanced the response of the WT seedlings to BL in a dose-dependent manner, whereas they were not sufficient to promote anthocyanin accumulation in darkness. In addition, data from experiments using the hy4 mutant showed that the CTK effect of BL was also CRY1-dependent. The results from experiments with three different treatment programs showed that the relationship between BL and KT in anthocyanin accumulation of Arabidopsis seedlings seems neither multiplicative nor additive coaction, but rather interaction. BL is necessary for anthocyanin accumulation, and KT might be involved in the BL signaling pathway.(Author for correspondence.Tel: +86 (0)20 8521 6417; Fax: +86 (0)20 8521 6417; E-mail:wangxj@scnu.edu.cn)

Key words: anthocyanin, Arabidopsis, blue light, cytokinin, hy4 mutant.