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Bouvier JW, Emms DM, Kelly S. Rubisco is evolving for improved catalytic efficiency and CO 2 assimilation in plants. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2321050121. [PMID: 38442173 PMCID: PMC10945770 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2321050121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2023] [Accepted: 01/25/2024] [Indexed: 03/07/2024] Open
Abstract
Rubisco is the primary entry point for carbon into the biosphere. However, rubisco is widely regarded as inefficient leading many to question whether the enzyme can adapt to become a better catalyst. Through a phylogenetic investigation of the molecular and kinetic evolution of Form I rubisco we uncover the evolutionary trajectory of rubisco kinetic evolution in angiosperms. We show that rbcL is among the 1% of slowest-evolving genes and enzymes on Earth, accumulating one nucleotide substitution every 0.9 My and one amino acid mutation every 7.2 My. Despite this, rubisco catalysis has been continually evolving toward improved CO2/O2 specificity, carboxylase turnover, and carboxylation efficiency. Consistent with this kinetic adaptation, increased rubisco evolution has led to a concomitant improvement in leaf-level CO2 assimilation. Thus, rubisco has been slowly but continually evolving toward improved catalytic efficiency and CO2 assimilation in plants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacques W Bouvier
- Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RB, United Kingdom
| | - David M Emms
- Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RB, United Kingdom
| | - Steven Kelly
- Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RB, United Kingdom
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KhokharVoytas A, Shahbaz M, Maqsood MF, Zulfiqar U, Naz N, Iqbal UZ, Sara M, Aqeel M, Khalid N, Noman A, Zulfiqar F, Al Syaad KM, AlShaqhaa MA. Genetic modification strategies for enhancing plant resilience to abiotic stresses in the context of climate change. Funct Integr Genomics 2023; 23:283. [PMID: 37642792 DOI: 10.1007/s10142-023-01202-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2023] [Revised: 07/18/2023] [Accepted: 08/02/2023] [Indexed: 08/31/2023]
Abstract
Enhancing the resilience of plants to abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity, heat, and cold, is crucial for ensuring global food security challenge in the context of climate change. The adverse effects of climate change, characterized by rising temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns, and increased frequency of extreme weather events, pose significant threats to agricultural systems worldwide. Genetic modification strategies offer promising approaches to develop crops with improved abiotic stress tolerance. This review article provides a comprehensive overview of various genetic modification techniques employed to enhance plant resilience. These strategies include the introduction of stress-responsive genes, transcription factors, and regulatory elements to enhance stress signaling pathways. Additionally, the manipulation of hormone signaling pathways, osmoprotectant accumulation, and antioxidant defense mechanisms is discussed. The use of genome editing tools, such as CRISPR-Cas9, for precise modification of target genes related to stress tolerance is also explored. Furthermore, the challenges and future prospects of genetic modification for abiotic stress tolerance are highlighted. Understanding and harnessing the potential of genetic modification strategies can contribute to the development of resilient crop varieties capable of withstanding adverse environmental conditions caused by climate change, thereby ensuring sustainable agricultural productivity and food security.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Muhammad Shahbaz
- Department of Botany, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
| | | | - Usman Zulfiqar
- Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, 63100, Pakistan.
| | - Nargis Naz
- Department of Botany, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan
| | - Usama Zafar Iqbal
- Department of Botany, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan
| | - Maheen Sara
- Department of Nutritional Sciences, Government College Women University, Faisalabad, Pakistan
| | - Muhammad Aqeel
- State Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agro-ecosystems (SKLHIGA), College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, Gansu, People's Republic of China
| | - Noreen Khalid
- Department of Botany, Government College Women University Sialkot, Sialkot, Pakistan
| | - Ali Noman
- Department of Botany, Government College University, Faisalabad, Pakistan
| | - Faisal Zulfiqar
- Department of Horticultural Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, 63100, Pakistan
| | - Khalid M Al Syaad
- Department of Biology, College of Science, King Khalid University, Abha, 61413, Saudi Arabia
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Bouvier JW, Kelly S. Response to Tcherkez and Farquhar: Rubisco adaptation is more limited by phylogenetic constraint than by catalytic trade-off. JOURNAL OF PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 2023; 287:154021. [PMID: 37392528 DOI: 10.1016/j.jplph.2023.154021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/23/2023] [Revised: 05/22/2023] [Accepted: 05/30/2023] [Indexed: 07/03/2023]
Abstract
Rubisco is the primary entry point for carbon into the biosphere. It has been widely proposed that rubisco is highly constrained by catalytic trade-offs due to correlations between the enzyme's kinetic traits across species. In previous work, we have shown that the strength of these correlations, and thus the strength of catalytic trade-offs, have been overestimated due to the presence of phylogenetic signal in the kinetic trait data (Bouvier et al., 2021). We demonstrated that only the trade-offs between the Michaelis constant for CO2 and carboxylase turnover, and between the Michaelis constants for CO2 and O2 were robust to phylogenetic effects. We further demonstrated that phylogenetic constraints have limited rubisco adaptation to a greater extent than the combined action of catalytic trade-offs. Recently, however, our claims have been contested by Tcherkez and Farquhar (2021), who have argued that the phylogenetic signal we detect in rubisco kinetic traits is an artefact of species sampling, the use of rbcL-based trees for phylogenetic inference, laboratory-to-laboratory variability in kinetic measurements, and homoplasy of the C4 trait. In the present article, we respond to these criticisms on a point-by-point basis and conclusively show that all are unfounded. As such, we stand by our original conclusions. Namely, although rubisco kinetic evolution has been limited by biochemical trade-offs, these are not absolute and have been previously overestimated due to phylogenetic biases. Instead, rubisco adaptation has in fact been more limited by phylogenetic constraint.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacques W Bouvier
- Department of Biology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RB, United Kingdom
| | - Steven Kelly
- Department of Biology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RB, United Kingdom.
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Douglas-Gallardo OA, Murillo-López JA, Oller J, Mulholland AJ, Vöhringer-Martinez E. Carbon Dioxide Fixation in RuBisCO Is Protonation-State-Dependent and Irreversible. ACS Catal 2022. [DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.2c01677] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Oscar A. Douglas-Gallardo
- Departamento de Físico-Química, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción 4030000, Chile
- Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom
| | - Juliana A. Murillo-López
- Departamento de Físico-Química, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción 4030000, Chile
| | - Javier Oller
- Departamento de Físico-Química, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción 4030000, Chile
- Departamento de Química Orgánica y Fisicoquímica, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380000, Chile
| | - Adrian J. Mulholland
- Centre for Computational Chemistry, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TS, United Kingdom
| | - Esteban Vöhringer-Martinez
- Departamento de Físico-Química, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción 4030000, Chile
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Cummins PL. The Coevolution of RuBisCO, Photorespiration, and Carbon Concentrating Mechanisms in Higher Plants. FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE 2021; 12:662425. [PMID: 34539685 PMCID: PMC8440988 DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2021.662425] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2021] [Accepted: 07/26/2021] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP) carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) is the carbon-fixing enzyme present in most photosynthetic organisms, converting CO2 into organic matter. Globally, photosynthetic efficiency in terrestrial plants has become increasingly challenged in recent decades due to a rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 and associated changes toward warmer and dryer environments. Well adapted for these new climatic conditions, the C4 photosynthetic pathway utilizes carbon concentrating mechanisms to increase CO2 concentrations surrounding RuBisCO, suppressing photorespiration from the oxygenase catalyzed reaction with O2. The energy efficiency of C3 photosynthesis, from which the C4 pathway evolved, is thought to rely critically on an uninterrupted supply of chloroplast CO2. Part of the homeostatic mechanism that maintains this constancy of supply involves the CO2 produced as a byproduct of photorespiration in a negative feedback loop. Analyzing the database of RuBisCO kinetic parameters, we suggest that in genera (Flaveria and Panicum) for which both C3 and C4 examples are available, the C4 pathway evolved only from C3 ancestors possessing much lower than the average carboxylase specificity relative to that of the oxygenase reaction (S C/O=S C/S O), and hence, the higher CO2 levels required for development of the photorespiratory CO2 pump (C2 photosynthesis) essential in the initial stages of C4 evolution, while in the later stage (final optimization phase in the Flaveria model) increased CO2 turnover may have occurred, which would have been supported by the higher CO2 levels. Otherwise, C4 RuBisCO kinetic traits remain little changed from the ancestral C3 species. At the opposite end of the spectrum, C3 plants (from Limonium) with higher than average S C/O, which may be associated with the ability of increased CO2, relative to O2, affinity to offset reduced photorespiration and chloroplast CO2 levels, can tolerate high stress environments. It is suggested that, instead of inherently constrained by its kinetic mechanism, RuBisCO possesses the extensive kinetic plasticity necessary for adaptation to changes in photorespiration that occur in the homeostatic regulation of CO2 supply under a broad range of abiotic environmental conditions.
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