Light-dependent chloroplast relocation in wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca)

ABSTRACT

Chloroplast photorelocation is a vital organellar response that optimizes photosynthesis in plants amid fluctuating environmental conditions. Chloroplasts exhibit an accumulation response, in which they move toward weak light to enhance photoreception, and an avoidance response, in which they move away from strong light to avoid photodamage. Although chloroplast photorelocation has been extensively studied in model plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana, little is known about this process in the economically important crop strawberry. Here, we investigated chloroplast photorelocation in leaf mesophyll cells of wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca), a diploid relative of commercially cultivated octoploid strawberry (F. × ananassa). Microscopy observation revealed that the periclinal area of leaf mesophyll cells in F. vesca is considerably smaller than that of A. thaliana. Given this small cell size, we investigated chloroplast photorelocation in F. vesca by measuring light transmittance in leaves. Weak blue light induced the accumulation response, whereas strong blue light induced the avoidance response. Unexpectedly, strong red light also induced the accumulation response in F. vesca. These findings shed light on chloroplast photorelocation as an intracellular response, laying the foundation for enhancing photosynthesis and productivity in Fragaria.

KEYWORDS:

• Blue light
• chloroplast movement
• Fragaria vesca
• organelle
• red light
• woodland strawberry

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Takeshi Kurokura (Utsunomiya University) for providing Fragaria vesca ‘Hawaii-4’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

Y.K. designed the study; D.K. and C.T. performed the experiments; C.T. and Y.K. supervised the experiments; D.K., C.T., and Y.K. analyzed the data; D.K., C.T., and Y.K. wrote the manuscript.

Data availability statement

All data are available in the manuscript.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15592324.2024.2342744

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Utsunomiya University Strawberry Project (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan). Daisy Kiprono was financially supported by the Utsunomiya University Inter-University Exchange Project (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan).