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From leaf to multiscale models of photosynthesis: applications and challenges for crop improvement

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Abstract

To keep up with the growth of human population and to circumvent deleterious effects of global climate change, it is essential to enhance crop yield to achieve higher production. Here we review mathematical models of oxygenic photosynthesis that are extensively used, and discuss in depth a subset that accounts for diverse approaches providing solutions to our objective. These include models (1) to study different ways to enhance photosynthesis, such as fine-tuning antenna size, photoprotection and electron transport; (2) to bioengineer carbon metabolism; and (3) to evaluate the interactions between the process of photosynthesis and the seasonal crop dynamics, or those that have included statistical whole-genome prediction methods to quantify the impact of photosynthesis traits on the improvement of crop yield. We conclude by emphasizing that the results obtained in these studies clearly demonstrate that mathematical modelling is a key tool to examine different approaches to improve photosynthesis for better productivity, while effective multiscale crop models, especially those that also include remote sensing data, are indispensable to verify different strategies to obtain maximized crop yields.

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Fig. 1

Modified from Shevela and Govindjee (2016)

Fig. 2

Modified from https//ib.bioninja.com.au/higher-level/topic-8-metabolism-cell/untitled-2/c3-c4-and-cam-plants.html

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Abbreviations

C i, C m, C c :

Intercellular, mesophyll, or chloroplast CO2 concentration

CAM:

Crassulacean acid metabolism, a pathway of CO2 assimilation

CBB cycle:

Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle of CO2 assimilation

CCM:

CO2 concentrating mechanism

CET:

Cyclic electron transport

Chl:

Chlorophyll

Cyt:

Cytochrome

ΔΨ:

Electric potential difference across the thylakoid membrane

ΔpH:

pH difference across the thylakoid membrane

ETR:

Electron transport rate

Fe-S:

Rieske iron sulfur protein, an electron carrier

Fd:

Ferredoxin, an electron carrier

FNR:

Ferredoxin-NADP+ oxidoreductase

LHCI, LHCII:

Light-harvesting complexes in PSI and PSII antenna

NADP+ :

Oxidized form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, an electron carrier

NDH:

NADH dehydrogenase-like complex involved in antimycin A insensitive cyclic electron transport

NPQ:

Nonphotochemical quenching of the excited state of chlorophyll

OEC:

Oxygen evolving complex of PSII

P680, P700:

The primary electron donor of PSII and of PSI, respectively

PGR5/PGRL1:

A complex containing Proton Gradient Regulation 5 and Proton Gradient Regulation Like 1 proteins involved in antimycin A sensitive cyclic electron transport

pmf :

Proton motive force

P N :

The net photosynthetic rate

PQ and PQH2 :

Plastoquinone and its reduced form, plastoquinol

PSI, PSII:

Photosystem I and II

PTOX:

Plastid terminal oxidase, involved in chlororespiration

QA, QB :

First and second plastoquinone electron acceptors of PSII

Rac:

Rubisco activase

ROS:

Reactive oxygen species

Rubisco:

Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase

SIF:

Solar induced fluorescence

TM:

Thylakoid membrane

WWC:

Water-water cycle

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Acknowledgements

GG thanks Jeff Haas; Karl Schlief; and Tom Uebele, of the Life Sciences Office of Information Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign for computer-related help. YG was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (No: 51961125102, No: 31771680), Jiangsu Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Fund (SCX(22)3669). DL was supported by European Regional Development Fund project ‘Plants as a tool for sustainable global development’ (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000827) and by European Innovation Council, HORIZON-EIC-2021-PATHFINDER OPEN project DREAM (Grant Agreement No. 101046451).

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All the authors (AS, YG, DL and GG) contributed to the writing and the editing of this manuscript; figures were prepared by AS.

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Correspondence to Govindjee Govindjee.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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This is a review dedicated to the memory of Kenneth (Ken) Sauer (1931–2022), a friend of one of us (Govindjee).

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Stirbet, A., Guo, Y., Lazár, D. et al. From leaf to multiscale models of photosynthesis: applications and challenges for crop improvement. Photosynth Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-024-01083-9

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