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Bicarbonate use and carbon dioxide concentrating mechanisms in photosynthetic organisms

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Abstract

Photosynthesis is crucial to the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The key enzyme of photosynthesis, Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco), has two mutably competing substrates, CO2 and O2. It has features of carboxylase and oxygenase. Rubisco performs the function of carboxylase to reduce inorganic carbon to form organic substances, which precondition is that more carbon dioxide accumulates around it. Carbon dioxide concentrating mechanisms (CCMs) are vital to cope with the limit of carbon dioxide. Various bicarbonate use pathway has a differential contribution to inorganic carbon assimilation. Bicarbonate transport, extracellular bicarbonate dehydration, or H+-ATPase-driven bicarbonate uptake, which induced CCMs, can support a considerable share of photosynthesis in photosynthetic organisms. However, CCMs in thylakoid membranes may be the most important. The CCMs occurred in the plasma membrane were secondary, evolutionary, and inducible, while CCMs coupled with photosynthetic oxygen evolution in thylakoid membranes, were primitive, major, and indispensable. A hypothetical schematic model of CCMs occurred in the plasma membrane and thylakoid membranes being proposed.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks the foundations of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. U1612441-2], the National Key Research and Development Program of China [2016YFC0502602], and Support Plan Projects of Science and Technology Department of Guizhou Province [No. (2021)YB453].

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang, 550081, People’s Republic of China

    Yanyou Wu

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Wu, Y. Bicarbonate use and carbon dioxide concentrating mechanisms in photosynthetic organisms. Acta Geochim 40, 846–853 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11631-021-00488-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11631-021-00488-w

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