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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Urbana, Illinois » Global Change and Photosynthesis Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #219097
Title: The rate of photosynthesis remains relatively high at moderately high temperatures in Arabidopsis thaliana rca mutant expressing thermostable chimeric Rubisco activase

Author
item Portis Jr, Archie
item Kumar, Anshuman
item LI, C - INST OF HUMAN VIROLOGY

Submitted to: Photosynthesis Research
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/15/2007
Publication Date: 2/1/2007
Citation: Portis Jr., A.R., Kumar, A., Li, C. 2007. The rate of photosynthesis remains relatively high at moderately high temperatures in Arabidopsis thaliana rca mutant expressing thermostable chimeric Rubisco activase [abstract]. Photosynthesis Research. 91:317.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The rate of photosynthesis declines at moderately high temperatures (30-42 deg C) in temperate plants like Arabidopsis. The decline is due to deactivation of Rubisco which in turn is due to a reduced ability of activase to activate Rubisco (Crafts-Brandner and Salvucci, PNAS 97:13430-13435, 2000). We created a more thermostable activase for Arabidopsis by replacing the Rubisco recognition domain in the more thermostable tobacco activase with that from Arabidopsis. In vitro studies confirmed that the chimeric activase is more thermostable that the native Arabidopsis activase. We than transformed the Arabidopsis rca mutant and selected lines with high expression of this chimeric activase. The initial studies indicate that the rate of photosynthesis as measured by gas exchange is higher than the wild type in the transgenic lines at both 30 and 38 deg C. The recovery of photosynthesis is also better in the transgenic lines when the plants are returned to lower temperature (23 deg C).