Abstract
Warming driven by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is irreversible over at least the next century, unless practical technologies are rapidly developed and deployed at scale to remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Accepting this reality highlights the central importance for crop agriculture to develop adaptation strategies for a warmer future. While nearly all processes in plants are impacted by above optimum temperatures, the impact of heat stress on photosynthetic processes stand out for their centrality. Here, we review transgenic strategies that show promise in improving the high-temperature tolerance of specific subprocesses of photosynthesis and in some cases have already been shown in proof of concept in field experiments to protect yield from high temperature-induced losses. We also highlight other manipulations to photosynthetic processes for which full proof of concept is still lacking but we contend warrant further attention. Warming that has already occurred over the past several decades has had detrimental impacts on crop production in many parts of the world. Declining productivity presages a rapidly developing global crisis in food security particularly in low income countries. Transgenic manipulation of photosynthesis to engineer greater high-temperature resilience holds encouraging promise to help meet this challenge.
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Notes
The Sahel is a transitional region between the wooded Sudanian savanna to the south and the Sahara to the north. It spans ~6000 km from the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast of Africa to the Red Sea in the east. The Sahel belt from west to east includes parts of northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, the extreme south of Algeria, Niger, the extreme north of Nigeria, Cameroon and Central African Republic, central Chad, central and southern Sudan, the extreme north of South Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahel#cite_note-2)
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the research project Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) that is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, and U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office under grant no. OPP1172157.
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Cavanagh, A.P., Ort, D.R. Transgenic strategies to improve the thermotolerance of photosynthesis. Photosynth Res 158, 109–120 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-023-01024-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-023-01024-y