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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Urbana, Illinois » Global Change and Photosynthesis Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #324799
Title: Manipulating photorespiration to increase plant productivity. Recent advances and perspectives for crop improvement

Author
item BETTI, MARCO - University Of Sevilla
item BAUWE, HERMANN - University Of Rostock
item BUSH, FLORIAN - Australian National University
item FERNIE, ALISDAIR - Max Planck Institute Of Molecular Plant Physiology
item KEECH, OLIVER - University Of Umea
item LEVEY, MYLES - Heinrich-Heine University
item Ort, Donald
item PARRY, MARTIN A J - Rothamsted Research
item SAGE, ROWAN - University Of Toronto
item TIMM, STEFAN - University Of Rostock
item Walker, Berkley
item WEBER, ANDREAS P M - Heinrich-Heine University

Submitted to: Journal of Experimental Botany
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/8/2016
Publication Date: 3/7/2016
Citation: Betti, M., Bauwe, H., Bush, F., Fernie, A.R., Keech, O., Levey, M., Ort, D.R., Parry, M., Sage, R., Timm, S., Walker, B.J., Weber, A. 2016. Manipulating photorespiration to increase plant productivity. Recent advances and perspectives for crop improvement. Journal of Experimental Botany. 67(10):2977-2988.

Interpretive Summary: There is an urgent demand for increased crop productivity due to the world’s population growth, increasing global affluence, reduction of cultivable soils and higher demand for plant based biofuels. However, the increases in yield for several major crops like rice in recent years have been scarce, and is possible that actual crop yield is approaching a ceiling for maximal yield potential. For these reasons, attention is being payed to the improvement of photosynthesis, a process that is still far from its theoretical maximum efficiency. Photorespiration has been viewed as a target for crop improvement due to the highly wasteful nature of the cycle and to the high energetic cost that imposes on plant metabolism. In this work different approaches that can be used to manipulate photorespiration and their possible application for crop improvement are investigated.

Technical Abstract: Recycling of the 2-phosphoglycolate generated by the oxygenase reaction of Rubisco requires a complex and energy-consuming set of reactions collectively known as the photorespiratory cycle. Several approaches have been proposed with the aim of producing plants with reduced rates of photorespiratory energy or carbon loss, both by screening for natural variability and by means of genetic engineering. Recent works indicate that plant yield can be substantially improved by the alteration of photorespiratory fluxes or by engineering artificial bypasses to photorespiration. However, there are also evidences that indicate, under certain environmental and/or nutritional conditions, reduced photorespiratory capacity may be detrimental for plant performance. Here, we summarize recent advances obtained in photorespiratory engineering and we discuss prospects for these advances to be transferred to major crops to help address the globally increasing demand for food.