Edward Smith

A diagrame of the molecular parts used to make a synthetic biomolecular condensate and confocal microscopy images of the condensates

Outstanding work by @anyalb.bsky.social in my lab - she targeted enzymes to synthetic biomolecular condensates in plants and showed increases in metabolic pathway activity, likely due to protection of the introduced enzymes from proteolysis
#PlantScience
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Shortcutting Photorespiration Protects Potato Photosynthesis and Tuber Yield Against Heatwave Stress Over two growing seasons, a chloroplast localized synthetic glycolate metabolic pathway expressed in potato, enhanced tuber biomass. We confirmed that this yield benefit did not come at the cost of t...

3/ Compare this to recent potato studies: doi.org/10.1111/gcb...., doi.org/10.1111/pbi.... Matching the right pathway to the right crop species in the right growing conditions will be key to unlocking this tech’s huge potential!

2/ The CO2 compensation point (CO2 conc. where net CO2 release is zero) usually drops with this bypass, but here it rose. Maybe due to species-specific differences in CO2 diffusion paths? More modelling needed to figure this out!

1/ Blocking glycolate export from chloroplasts has previously been shown to be a good strategy - but here it resulted in worse performance in the field. With this type of bypass some native photorespiration can be beneficial so fine-tuning this could be a next step.

A synthetic glycolate metabolism bypass in rice chloroplasts increases photosynthesis and yield Photorespiration consumes photosynthetically fixed carbon and reduces yields by 20%–50% in C3 crops. In an attempt to increase photosynthetic efficien…

A big month for engineering photorespiration! More evidence that bypassing photorespiration in rice by converting glycolate to CO2 in chloroplasts can boost yields. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... More work needed to ensure gains reach the grains 🍚 but another promising step forward! 🧵

Beyond photorespiration: A systematic approach to unlocking enhanced plant productivity New research from GAIN4CROPS partners provides critical insights into overcoming one of agriculture’s most costly inefficiencies.

Our team recently published important findings in Science Advances on improving crop efficiency!

Read the press release to learn more. 🌻

#PlantScience #SustainableAgriculture #FoodSecurity #EUResearch

gain4crops.eu/beyond-photo...

Sam Lovat, Elad Noor, Ron Milo run the numbers on #VerticalFarming to get ⚡️ cost ≈$10/kg dry plant matter.
Which explains why it's viable only for high-value 🥬 ('fru-fru baby lettuce')

Vertical farming limitations & potential demonstrated by back-of-the-envelope calculations
doi.org/10.1093/plph...

If you want to find out why metabolism may look different to what you were taught, and why this matters, dip into to our review 'Non-canonical plant metabolism' www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@natureplants.bsky.social
#PlantScience

3. Interestingly the net photosynthetic rate still seems to be increased under high CO2 (when you wouldn't expect much photorespiration to be occurring anyway) 🤔 Can anyone help explain this? @florianabusch.bsky.social

2. The GOC pathway had the biggest improvement under high-light conditions. Reassuringly this matches our recent modelling work which also predicted other alternative pathways - like those that fix additional CO2 - could perform even better than the pathway described in this paper.

1. The pathway increased yields even under adverse conditions such as heavy rain, low light and waterlogging. This is super important to mitigate the effects climate change can have on weather patterns.

Synthetic photorespiratory bypass more stably increases potato yield per plant by improving photosynthesis The bioengineering of photorespiration has emerged as a key target for improving photosynthesis and crop yield. In our previous study, two photorespiratory bypasses, GOC and GCGT, were successfully e...

Another example just published of an alternative pathway to photorespiration boosting crop yields by 21%–69%! This time a complete glycolate oxidation pathway (called GOC) in potatoes. Some interesting takeaways 👇
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Really impressive work from Ari and the team - going from an idea all the way to a functional pathway using the latest synbio tools! The CORE cycle is another carbon fixing route that could be used as an alternative to photorespiration in plants. Interested to see where this goes next! 🌱📈

Follow @gain4crops.eu for updates as we test these predictions in plants 🌻

Next steps: turning 🖥️ models into real-world yield boosts 📈

Thanks to @matthiasheinemann.bsky.social @apmweber.bsky.social @Marvin van Aalst @Oliver Ebenhöh and everyone @gain4crops.eu

Excitingly we found that carbon fixing pathways should perform even better! They boost the carbon use efficiency of the calvin cycle and net carbon fixation 🟰 increased yields!

Field trials (like @ripeproject.bsky.social's awesome work) show pathways that relocate CO2 release to chloroplasts, from mitochondria can perform well 🚜 Our models link this to CO2 diffusion & Rubisco efficiency gains.

Energy costs, CO2 diffusion & native pathway interactions make it hard to pick the best pathway designs intuitively 🤔We used metabolic models to find top performers under various conditions.

Alternative pathways can do the same job - recycle 2PG back into the metabolic network. Some release CO2 in the process but others can even fix extra CO2!

It’s often taught photorespiration is vital & altering it could harm plants ☠️ But it’s not the pathway itself that matters—it’s the function: clearing 2PG from Rubisco’s O2 reaction 🧹

Alternatives to photorespiration: A system-level analysis reveals mechanisms of enhanced plant productivity Computational modeling reveals how engineering plants with alternative pathways to photorespiration could boost crop yields.

As well as CO2 Rubisco reacts with O2: plants evolved photorespiration to deal with the consequences. It works, but synthetic biology can do better! 🔄 We used metabolic modeling to compare alternative pathways to boost crop yields 🌱 🧵 #ScienceAdvancesResearch
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...