On a Possible Way to Increase the Efficiency of Photosynthesis.

ABSTRACT

The paper briefly describes the evolution of the key enzyme of photosynthesis, RuBisCO. Before the emergence of the reaction of carbon dioxide assimilation via photosynthesis, this protein was involved in the methionine metabolism chain. Possibly, for this reason, the carboxylation reaction catalyzed by enzyme proceeds very slowly. In addition to carboxylation, RuBisCO can simultaneously oxidize ribulose bisphosphate, a substrate to which the fixed CO2 is attached. This, in turn, also reduces the effectiveness of photosynthesis. In this regard, the literature discusses various options for increasing plant productivity by creating new forms of RuBisCO or fundamentally different pathways of carbon dioxide assimilation. In this work, we propose a modification of the carboxylation reaction that makes it possible to avoid photorespiration and thus increase the efficiency of photosynthesis.