cryptochromes

CELL BIOLOGY: ON CRYPTOCHROMES: "The term 'cryptochrome' began as a generic label for photoreceptors in plants that were responsible for plant responsiveness to blue light. After the first blue-light receptor was cloned in Arabidposis thaliana, the term cryptochrome came to mean a photolyase-like photoreceptor, due to its sequence similarity to photolyase, a DNA repair enzyme activated by blue light. Cryptochromes (CRYs) are thought to have evolved from photolyases several times independently."