Early light induced proteins (ELIP) are a type of proteins which are expressed before than other chloroplast proteins in the presence of light. These proteins have been studied in a large number of annual species such as pea (Pisum sativum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and Arabidopsis sp. In perennials plants the studies about ELIPs are very scarce. The possible photoprotective function of the ELIPs has motivated the interest in investigating the presence of this type of proteins in a perennial plant such as grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) and if their characteristics differ from those found in annual plants. In this paper a comparative study was conducted on the ELIPs expression in grapevine and pea to investigate whether there are differences regarding to temperature and light intensity conditions necessary for maximum ELIP expression in each species and for studying in each case the relationship between ELIP expression and photoinhibition degree. The results of this study showed that the maximum ELIPs expression was reached from 25 degrees C and 1000 mu mol PAR m(-2) s(-1) in both species. Above these values the expression remained constant. Regarding the temperature and light intensity effect on the photoinhibition degree, it was observed that temperature produced inverse relation in grapevine but no relation with pea. On the other hand, the light intensity produced direct relation in both grapevine and pea. The light intensity effect on ELIP expression suggests that these proteins may have a photorepairing role of the photosynthetic system, but the effect of temperature on the ELIP expression in short-term stress may be associated rather to the optimum conditions for their synthesis.