Research led by scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) could lead to major improvements in crop production.
The research showed a new way to help study and ramp up photosynthesis - and the breakthrough was based on revisiting an original, billion-year-old strategy in plants.
It looked specifically at rubiscoactivity - a crucial part of the process according to co-author Professor Spencer Whitney from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis at ANU.
"Rubisco is an enzyme involved in the first step of carbon fixation - it starts the conversion of carbon dioxide into plant sugars," he said.
"But compared to other enzymes, rubisco is considered a slow, inefficient catalyst.
"Many enzymes can process hundreds to thousands of molecules per second, but rubisco can only get through two to five cycles per second.
Using a chloroplast SynBio approach the researchers deciphered how the small subunit influences potato Rubisco catalysis. Photo / Elena Martin-Avila, et al.
"For this reason, it's long been recognised as a good target for improving photosynthesis -- it's a puzzle scientists have been looking at for decades."
In plants rubisco is made up of 16 proteins - eight large and eight small subunits. Until now scientists have only been able to tinker with one subunit at a time.
