Event Details

Photorespiration in the context of metabolism and anatomy

Photorespiration is one of the most important biochemical pathways in nature – after photosynthesis – and is a major target for bioengineering to improve crop yield. It is often considered wasteful and something that may be improved. Photorespiration, however, is connected to various other metabolic pathways that draw metabolites from the photorespiratory pathway, such as the nitrogen metabolism. Here I outline how photorespiration can improve photosynthetic performance of plants despite decreasing the efficiency of Rubisco carboxylation.Assessing its impact on carbon fixation requires an accurate measurement of photorespiration. The standard method for quantification involves estimating the chloroplastic CO2 concentration using stable isotope techniques with the Farquhar, O'Leary and Berry model. Unfortunately, this model does not well represent respiratory biochemistry. I will describe a new model that is suitable to assess fundamental diffusion properties inside the leaf affecting photorespiration.