Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PhotoRedesign (Redesigning the Photosynthetic Light Reactions)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-10-01 al 2023-03-31
Therefore, the PhotoRedesign project aims at enhancing photosynthesis, and to be more precise, the light reactions of photosynthesis that capture light and convert the captured light energy into molecules that can then be used to convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into organic biomolecules. As a matter of fact, nature has invented several types of organisms that can perform photosynthesis. Since they all trace back to a common ancestor, these organisms are still genetically compatible, meaning that their genes should work also in the other organisms. We selected three very distantly related organisms that can utilise very different parts of the sun light for photosynthesis, namely cyanobacteria with a blue-green coloration, plants that are green and purple bacteria that have the colour purple. As mentioned before, their different colours indicate already that they can use very different portions of the sun light for photosynthesis.
Our goal is to combine the different components of these three organisms responsible for light capture. Ideally, this will create an organism which becomes black, because it uses all parts of the sunlight. As a test laboratory to achieve this we are using the cyanobacterium Synechocystis because it is easily accessible to genetic manipulation.
Generating such a black cyanobacterium would represent on itself already a breakthrough in the research field of enhancing photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria are important model organisms for biotechnological applications and such black cyanobacteria might provide the basis for a better production of biofuels and other valuable compounds. Equally important is that results obtained in the cyanobacterium can be transferred to plants which provide our food. To this end, the cyanobacterium can be used as a test laboratory for enhanced photosynthesis which will then be rebuilt in its optimized form in plants.