Glycolate oxidation inside the chloroplast: A novel method for the suppression of photorespiration in plants

植物在光呼吸过程中释放了相当一部分已经固定的二氧化碳。在炎热干旱的气候下，这种影响会进一步加剧。此外，在其他最佳条件下，用二氧化碳施肥明显提高了作物的生长和产量。我们提出了一种抑制光呼吸的新方法。来自大肠杆菌的途径将被转移到叶绿体中，在释放二氧化碳的情况下，能够将乙醇酸转化为甘油酸。因此，光呼吸的产物将直接导致叶绿体中CO2浓度的增加，从而抑制光呼吸。这种方法的重要创新之处在于鉴定和应用了具有有机辅因子的乙醇酸氧化酶，避免了氧自由基的产生，并将完整的编码序列作为一个顺反子转移到叶绿体基因组中。

Plants loose a significant part of the already fixed CO2 in the process of photorespiration. This effect is exacerbated further under hot and arid climates. Also, growth and yield of crops is clearly enhanced by fertilisation with CO2 under otherwise optimal conditions. We propose a novel approach for the suppression of photorespiration. A pathway derived from E. coli will be transferred into the chloroplast capable of converting glycolate into glycerate under release of CO2. Thus, the products of photorespiration will directly lead to enhanced CO2 concentrations in the chloroplast and therefore suppress photorespiration. Important novelties of this approach are the identification and application of glycolate-oxidising enzymes with organic co-factors avoiding the production of oxygen radicals and the transfer of the complete coding sequences as one cistron into the chloroplast genome.