The tenacity of Lagarias and co-workers has finally paid
off. In a recent paper [20] they report that recombinant oat
and algal phytochromes purified from two different sources
have light- and chromophore-regulated autophosphorylation
activity. Recombinant oat phytochrome A was shown
to exhibit kinase activity with similar biochemical properties
to those observed with the plant-purified protein; it is
stimulated by polycations, inhibited by pyrophosphates,
and shows differential phosphorylation according to the
Pr/Pfr ratio