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Reposted by Edward Smith

Lee Sweetlove @leesweetlove.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Outstanding work by @anyalb.bsky.social in my lab - she targeted enzymes to synthetic biomolecular condensates in plants and showed increases in metabolic pathway activity, likely due to protection of the introduced enzymes from proteolysis #PlantScience onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A diagrame of the molecular parts used to make a synthetic biomolecular condensate and confocal microscopy images of the condensates

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Edward Smith @tednsmith.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

A big month for engineering photorespiration! More evidence that bypassing photorespiration in rice by converting glycolate to CO2 in chloroplasts can boost yields. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... More work needed to ensure gains reach the grains 🍚 but another promising step forward! 🧵

sciencedirect.com

A synthetic glycolate metabolism bypass in rice chloroplasts increases photosynthesis and yield

Photorespiration consumes photosynthetically fixed carbon and reduces yields by 20%–50% in C3 crops. In an attempt to increase photosynthetic efficien…

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Reposted by Edward Smith

Andrew D Hanson @adhansonlab.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Sam Lovat, Elad Noor, Ron Milo run the numbers on #VerticalFarming to get ⚡️ cost ≈$10/kg dry plant matter. Which explains why it's viable only for high-value 🥬 ('fru-fru baby lettuce') Vertical farming limitations & potential demonstrated by back-of-the-envelope calculations doi.org/10.1093/plph...

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Reposted by Edward Smith

Lee Sweetlove @leesweetlove.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

If you want to find out why metabolism may look different to what you were taught, and why this matters, dip into to our review 'Non-canonical plant metabolism' www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natureplants.bsky.social #PlantScience

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Edward Smith @tednsmith.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Another example just published of an alternative pathway to photorespiration boosting crop yields by 21%–69%! This time a complete glycolate oxidation pathway (called GOC) in potatoes. Some interesting takeaways 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Synthetic photorespiratory bypass more stably increases potato yield per plant by improving photosynthesis

The bioengineering of photorespiration has emerged as a key target for improving photosynthesis and crop yield. In our previous study, two photorespiratory bypasses, GOC and GCGT, were successfully e...

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Edward Smith @tednsmith.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Really impressive work from Ari and the team - going from an idea all the way to a functional pathway using the latest synbio tools! The CORE cycle is another carbon fixing route that could be used as an alternative to photorespiration in plants. Interested to see where this goes next! 🌱📈

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Edward Smith @tednsmith.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

As well as CO2 Rubisco reacts with O2: plants evolved photorespiration to deal with the consequences. It works, but synthetic biology can do better! 🔄 We used metabolic modeling to compare alternative pathways to boost crop yields 🌱 🧵 #ScienceAdvancesResearch www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Alternatives to photorespiration: A system-level analysis reveals mechanisms of enhanced plant productivity

Computational modeling reveals how engineering plants with alternative pathways to photorespiration could boost crop yields.

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