What can plants learn from algae?

The powers of thealgae help them grow quickly and efficiently. The groundwork for transferring this ability to agricultural crops was laid by Carnegie's Adrien Burlacot. Nature publishes their findings.

Plants, algae, and certainbacteria are capable of converting the sun's energy into chemical energy using a series of biochemical reactions. The process made the atmosphere oxygen rich, allowing animal life to arise and thrive, and underpins our entire food chain.

The first and second stages of photosynthesis take place. In the first, light is absorbed and used to make energy molecule. In the second stage, carbon dioxide from the air is fixed into carbon-based sugars, such asglucose and sucrose.

It isn't a particularly efficient process because it was an ancient one that shaped the atmosphere. Plants capture carbon dioxide from the air because of their own success. Plants were able to grab the carbon needed for the second stage in a carbon dioxide rich atmosphere. Plants are limited by the small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and can't efficiently lock it down.

The mechanism that increases their efficiency is by concentrating carbon dioxide around theidase that fixes it into sugars. The boost in biochemicals allows the growth of algae quickly.

If the cellular tools underlying this ability can be harnessed, it would allow us to engineer more productive plants.

They were able to understand the energy pathway that powers.

The atmospheric carbon dioxide must be converted to bicarbonate in order for it to be transported across the biological membranes. The researchers showed how cells create the energy to drive this series of alterations, allowing carbon dioxide to be concentrated without cutting into the cell's power supply for the carbon fixation process.

It has been known for a long time that algae can concentrate carbon dioxide and improve their efficiency, but the mechanisms of this process have remained poorly understood.

More information: Adrien Burlacot et al, Alternative photosynthesis pathways drive the algal CO₂-concentrating mechanism, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04662-9 Journal information: Nature Citation: What can plants learn from algae? (2022, April 28) retrieved 28 April 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-algae.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.