Collaborative Research: Exploiting prokaryotic proteins to improve plant photosynthetic efficiency (EPP)

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The efficiency of light interception and of partitioning of photoassimilate into the harvested components of the major food crops appears to have been fully optimised. Nevertheless, there is still very significant scope for increasing crop productivity by increasing the conversion efficiency of photosynthesis by decreasing the proportion of assimilated carbon that is lost through simultaneous metabolic processes. One such process, photorespiration, is in principle completely expendable and yet can account for assimilate losses of 25-50%. The objective of this proposal is to introduce a cyanobacterial carboxysome-based CO2 concentrating mechanism into the chloroplasts of a model C3 plant (tobacco) in order to reduce, or eliminate, photorespiration. This objective will be addressed using a multidisciplinary approach, through the collaboration of several research groups, each contributing complementary expertise in the essential areas of carboxysome genetics and assembly, plant transformation, photosynthetic systems modelling and physiological and biochemical characterisation of whole plant and component photosynthetic processes. The progress and outcomes from the project will be made available to breeders and to the scientific community, with data being presented on the project website, at scientific meetings, at stakeholder events and in peer reviewed publications