Metabolite profiles reveal interspecific variation in operation of the Calvin–Benson cycle in both C4 and C3 plants

Abstract

Interspecific divergence in metabolite profiles in C3 and C4 species points to differing evolutionary trajectories of the Calvin–Benson cycle in different seed plant lineages

Overexpression of Sedoheptulose-1,7-Bisphosphatase Enhances Photosynthesis in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Has No Effect on the Abundance of Other Calvin-Benson Cycle Enzymes

“…Apparently, the highly complex regulation of the CBC and its central role in cellular metabolism make predictions difficult. This is highlighted by recent work, indicating that the balance between different steps in the CBC varies from species to species (Arrivault et al, 2019;Borghi et al, 2019). Therefore, experimental test is the route of choice that with the combination of MoClo and Chlamydomonas can be pursued readily.…”

The Cassava Source–Sink project: opportunities and challenges for crop improvement by metabolic engineering

“…During the first phase of the CASS project, and similar to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation‐supported project African Cassava Whitefly (Perez‐Fons et al ., 2019), considerable optimization of methods for metabolite profiling was required. This resulted in standard operating procedures across projects for metabolite and starch quality assessments in different cassava tissues (Rosado‐Souza et al ., 2019) and for enzyme activity measurements (Arrivault et al ., 2019). In addition, six African cultivars of cassava were grown either in the greenhouse (at the University of Erlangen, Germany) or in the field (at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, Nigeria) to analyze source leaves, sink leaves, stems, and storage roots during storage root bulking for their metabolite, ion, and enzyme content (Obata et al ., 2020) and to establish a procedure for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)‐based quantification of the three‐dimensional canopy structure and its dynamical changes throughout the season (Van Doorn et al ., 2020).…”

“…Based on our previous work, we have now a basic understanding of cassava source and sink metabolism. Cassava performs C3 photosynthesis (Arrivault et al ., 2019) and leaf photoassimilates are loaded apoplasmically into the phloem (Mehdi et al ., 2019). Nodal‐derived fibrous roots, emerging on planted cassava stem pieces, develop into storage roots by secondary growth.…”

Natural genetic variation in photosynthesis: an untapped resource to increase crop yield potential?

“…The biochemical processes of photosynthesis in C 3 crops are considered essentially identical, (although recent metabolite profiling of C 3 species by Arrivault et al () has reported considerable variation in levels of metabolites), however, significant intraspecific and interspecific variation in photosynthetic rates exists, providing a valuable source of unexploited genetic diversity (Flood et al , ) (Table a). Furthermore, the physiological or genetic mechanisms underlying these differences in both photosynthetic potential as well as dynamic behaviour may provide valuable information on the performance of different cultivars under specific environments (Driever et al , ).…”

“…Genetic engineering approaches have shown that increasing protein abundance (e.g. sedoheptulose1,7‐biphosphatase, SBPase) led to a significant increase in A which suggests that although photosynthesis requires a large number of protein–protein interactions, part of the genetic variation can be explained by differences in key protein abundance and activity, that result in improved photosynthetic capacity (Flood et al , ; Simkin et al , ) and which also might explain variation in metabolite profiles in C 3 species (Arrivault et al , ). The potential for exploiting natural variation in photosynthetic capacity has been demonstrated by Gu et al () who used a simulation analyses to assess the contribution that the natural variation in RuBisCO and electron transport rate could make to photosynthesis in rice and showed that exploiting this could increase rice yield by 22–29%, depending on location and year.…”