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In vivo stoichiometry of photorespiratory metabolism

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Abstract

Photorespiration is a major light-dependent metabolic pathway that consumes oxygen and produces carbon dioxide. In the metabolic step responsible for carbon dioxide production, two molecules of glycine (equivalent to two molecules of O2) are converted into one molecule of serine and one molecule of CO2. Here, we use quantitative isotopic techniques to determine the stoichiometry of this reaction in sunflower leaves, and thereby the O2/CO2 stoichiometry of photorespiration. We find that the effective O2/CO2 stoichiometric coefficient at the leaf level is very close to 2 under normal photorespiratory conditions, in line with expectations, but increases slightly at high rates of photorespiration. The net metabolic impact of this imbalance is likely to be modest.

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Figure 1: Metabolite content and 13C-enrichment on labelling with 13C-Gly as a function of the oxygenation rate.
Figure 2: 15N-enrichment pattern and apparent fluxes on labelling with 15N-Gly.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Bligny for carrying out analyses associated with preliminary tests for quantitative 15N-NMR, Bruker Biospin for its contribution to find the best NMR quantitative analytical conditions and the Plateforme Métabolisme-Métabolome for access to IRMS, GCMS, NMR and LCMS facilities. This work was supported by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche via a project Jeunes Chercheurs (under contract JC12-0001-01) and the Australian Research Council via a Future Fellowship (under contract FT140100645).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research School of Biology, ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia

    Cyril Abadie, Adam J. Carroll & Guillaume Tcherkez

  2. Laboratoire BVpam, EA3061, Université de Lyon/Saint-Etienne, 23 rue du Docteur Michelon, 42000 Saint-Etienne, France

    Edouard R. A. Boex-Fontvieille

Authors
  1. Cyril Abadie
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  2. Edouard R. A. Boex-Fontvieille
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  3. Adam J. Carroll
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  4. Guillaume Tcherkez
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Contributions

E.R.A.B.-F., C.A. and G.T. performed experimental work; G.T. and C.A. designed the experiments; A.J.C. performed database searching (metabolomics); G.T. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Guillaume Tcherkez.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Abadie, C., Boex-Fontvieille, E., Carroll, A. et al. In vivo stoichiometry of photorespiratory metabolism. Nature Plants 2, 15220 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2015.220

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2015.220

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