Manipulation of photosynthetic carbon metabolism in wheat to improve yield

鉴于预计需要在未来20年内将世界粮食产量增加40%，到2050年增加70%，确保粮食安全是一项重大挑战(粮农组织预测)。显然，迫切需要发展在不增加化肥或水投入的情况下，提高单位土地面积产量的农作物。本研究的目的是验证以下假设：1)现有的光合作用能力变异可以被利用来增加现代小麦品种的光合作用和总生物量；2)对光合作用碳代谢的遗传调控可以导致作物的光合作用表现增强，从而导致更高的产量、更高的氮素利用效率和更高的资源利用效率。我们将利用碳同位素鉴别、气体分析和生化分析相结合的方法，从一系列来源中筛选现有的小麦种质，以确定具有改善的光合作用特性的植物，以便在未来的育种计划中使用。我们还将培育出SBPase和Rubisco水平改变的转基因小麦植株。将对转基因株系进行详细的生理和分子分析，以确定光合作用参数对温室植物生长的影响。

Ensuring food security is a major challenge given the projected need to increase world food production by 40% in the next 20 years and 70% by 2050 (FAO forecasts). There is clearly an urgent need to develop crop plants that yield higher outputs per unit area of land, without having to increase inputs of fertiliser or water. The aims of this research proposal are to test the hypotheses that: 1) The existing variation in photosynthetic capacity can be exploited to increase photosynthesis and total biomass of modern wheat cultivars; and 2) Genetic manipulation of photosynthetic carbon metabolism can lead to enhanced photosynthetic performance in crop plants and result in higher yields, increased nitrogen use efficiency and increased resource-use efficiency. We will screen existing wheat germplasm from a range of sources using a combination of carbon isotope discrimination, gas analysis and biochemical assays to identify plants with improved photosynthetic characteristics for use in future breeding programmes. We will also produce transgenic wheat plants with altered levels of SBPase and Rubisco. A detailed physiological and molecular analysis of the resulting transgenic lines will be carried out to determine the impact of photosynthetic parameters on growth in greenhouse grown plants.