This odd little plant could help turbocharge crop yields. An international team of researchers has uncovered a remarkable molecular trick used by a unique group of land plants called hornworts, one t...

In many algae, photosynthesis is boosted by biophysical CO2-concentrating mechanisms, which pack the CO2-fixing enzyme Rubisco into liquid-like organelles called pyrenoids. Engineering C3 crops with a...

Hornworts are non-vascular land plants, which diverged from vascular plants approximately 500 million years ago, yet the CO2 fixing enzyme (Rubisco) in hornworts has received little prior attention. This study develops the synthetic biology system to heterologously express hornwort Rubiscos and demonstrates that hornwort Rubiscos have different biogenesis dependencies. Further analyses of the kinetics of hornwort Rubiscos show that Rubiscos are indeed phylogenetically constrained.

The pyrenoid contains internal membrane structures that are required for efficient carbon fixation. The two proteins SAGA1 and MITH1 are necessary for the biogenesis of these membranes and the deliver...

Two algal proteins, MITH1 and SAGA1, play key roles in formation of membranes that deliver CO2 to the pyrenoid, a CO2-concentrating organelle. Their discovery marks a key milestone towards engineering...