Rubisco without the Calvin cycle improves the carbon efficiency of developing green seeds

Jörg Schwender (), Fernando Goffman, John B. Ohlrogge and Yair Shachar-Hill
Additional contact information
Jörg Schwender: Michigan State University
Fernando Goffman: Michigan State University
John B. Ohlrogge: Michigan State University
Yair Shachar-Hill: Michigan State University

Nature, 2004, vol. 432, issue 7018, 779-782

Abstract: Abstract Efficient storage of carbon in seeds is crucial to plant fitness and to agricultural productivity. Oil is a major reserve material in most seeds1, and these oils provide the largest source of renewable reduced carbon chains available from nature. However, the conversion of carbohydrate to oil through glycolysis results in the loss of one-third of the carbon as CO2. Here we show that, in developing embryos of Brassica napus L. (oilseed rape), Rubisco (ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase) acts without the Calvin cycle2 and in a previously undescribed metabolic context to increase the efficiency of carbon use during the formation of oil. In comparison with glycolysis, the metabolic conversion we describe provides 20% more acetyl-CoA for fatty-acid synthesis and results in 40% less loss of carbon as CO2. Our conclusions are based on measurements of mass balance, enzyme activity and stable isotope labelling, as well as an analysis of elementary flux modes.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03145 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:432:y:2004:i:7018:d:10.1038_nature03145

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature03145

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().