Tag: photosynthesis

Boxall et al. explore the effects of silencing phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase in a Crassulacean acid metabolism species. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00481 By Susie Boxall and James Hartwell Background: Severe droughts and high temperatures are becoming more frequent due to climate…

Cyanobacteria and red algae employ phycobilisomes (PBSs) as light-harvesting systems to adapt to fluctuating environments. PBSs are composed of phycobiliproteins, linker proteins and chromophores. Ma et al. used cryo-EM to determine the 2.82 Å structure of  the very large (14.7-megadalton, 706 protein…

Angiosperm seeds develop within maternal tissues, yet in some species including Arabidopsis the developing embryos carry out photosynthesis. In Arabidopsis, this is transitory, and the embryonic chloroplasts lose chlorophyll and dedifferentiate into eoplasts as the seed matures. Sela et al. set out to…

Sun et al. reveal the subcellular organization of photosystem biogenesis in Chlamydomonas. Plant Cell https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.19.00263 by Melissa Valente-Paterno, Yi Sun and William Zerges. Department of Biology, Concordia University.  Background: Cells localize intracellular processes to…

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is a water-conserving strategy in which stomata open at night and carbon is stored until daytime photosynthesis provides the energy to fix it. This special issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany, edited by Hultine, Cushman, and Williams, brings together a set of…

Some plants such as Zea mays partition different components of the photosynthetic pathway in mesophyll cells (MC) and bundle sheath cells (BSC) in a process known as two-cell C4 photosynthesis. For example, light-harvesting reactions carried out by photosystem I and II (PSI and PSII) occur only in the…

Chromoplasts are a type of plastid, usually found in fruits and flowers, that can accumulate large amounts of carotenoids including beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A). It has been proposed that increasing chromoplast formation could be a way to enhance human consumption of vitamin A. In a new report, Llorente…

Photosynthesis occurs in several ways, only one of which releases oxygen as a product. As oxygen-breathing organisms, we are totally dependent on oxygenic photosynthesis, which is restricted to cyanobacteria and green plant plastids. In this review, Sánchez‐Baracaldo and Cardona examine how recent…