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title: "'researchers modeled 170 steps to identify how plants could…"
date: 2020-08-10
source: facebook
type: Archer T. Ships shared a link.
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# 'researchers modeled 170 steps to identify how plants could…

*August 10, 2020 · Facebook*

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[https://phys.org/news/2020-08-breakthrough-photosynthetic-hacks-boost-yield.html](https://phys.org/news/2020-08-breakthrough-photosynthetic-hacks-boost-yield.html){target="_blank"}
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\'researchers modeled 170 steps to identify how plants could manufacture sugars more efficiently; the team increased crop growth by 27 percent by resolving two constraints:\
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- the first part of photosynthesis where plants transform light energy into chemical energy and\
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- the second part where carbon dioxide is fixed into sugars\
The team addressed this first bottleneck by helping plastocyanin share the load with the addition of cytochrome c6- Plastocyanin requires copper and cytochrome requires iron to function. Depending on the availability of these nutrients, algae can choose between these two transport proteins.\
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At the same time, the team has improved a photosynthetic bottleneck in the Calvin-Benson Cycle---wherein carbon dioxide is fixed into sugars---by bulking up the amount of a key enzyme called SBPase, borrowing the additional cellular machinery from another plant species and cyanobacteria.\'
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