Research shows that photorespiration does not protect against fluctuating light conditions

Phys.org  November 7, 2023 It has been hypothesized that a specific metabolic pathway in photosynthesis that competes with carbon fixation has a protective function for plants. To test this hypothesis an international team of researchers (Germany, USA – Michigan State University) characterized plants with varying PR enzyme activities under fluctuating and non-fluctuating light conditions. Contrasting their expectations, growth of mutants with decreased PR enzyme levels was least affected in fluctuating light compared with wild type. Results for growth, photosynthesis and metabolites combined with thermodynamics-based flux analysis revealed two main causal factors for this unanticipated finding: reduced rates of photosynthesis in […]

Researchers help reveal a ‘blueprint’ for photosynthesis

Science Daily   September 9, 2022 The cyanobacterial antenna structures, which are called phycobilisomes, are complex collections of pigments and proteins, which assemble into relatively massive complexes. Researchers have been unable to get the high-resolution images of intact antennae needed to understand how they capture and conduct light energy. An international team of researchers (USA – Michigan State University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, Czech Republic) documented several notable results, including finding a new phycobilisome protein, observing two new ways that the phycobilisome orients its light-capturing rods that hadn’t been resolved before, and the structure of the antenna is available […]

Found: The ‘holy grail of catalysis’ turning methane into methanol under ambient conditions using light

Science Direct  June 30, 2022 Partial oxidation of methane (CH4) to methanol (CH3OH) lifts the energy density and drives the production of numerous chemicals. In nature, this is achieved by methane monooxygenase with di-iron sites, which is extremely challenging to mimic in artificial systems due to the high dissociation energy of the C–H bond in CH4 and facile over-oxidation of CH3OH to CO and CO2. An international team of researchers (UK, China, USA – University of Chicago, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Japan) has achieved the direct photo-oxidation of CH4 over mono-iron hydroxyl sites immobilized within a metal–organic framework, PMOF-RuFe(OH). Under […]