Seminar – Metabolic engineering to enhance photosynthesis and increase crop yield

Room: W.01
Speaker: Andrew J Simkin, Department of Genetics, Genomics and Breeding, NIAB-EMR, New Road, East Malling, Kent, ME19 6BJ, UK
Organizer:  Julian Verdonk

If you want to meet with Andrew, please send an email to Julian Verdonk, he will make the arrangements.

Abstract
Increasing demands of the growing world population for food and fuel are putting ever greater pressure on the need to develop higher yielding crop varieties. It has been estimated that increases of 50% will be required in the yield of grain crops such as wheat and rice if food supply is to meet the demands of the increasing population. The primary determinant of crop yield is the cumulative rate of photosynthesis over the growing season which is the result of the crop’s ability to capture light, the efficiency by which this light is converted to biomass and how much biomass is converted into the usable product e.g. grain. There is compelling evidence from transgenic studies that the manipulation of the Calvin cycle could increase crop yield and maximise production1-6. One of the major goals of this programme is to produce individual plants with the combined changes of increased SBPase and FBPaldolase transcript levels and to co-concomitantly introduce CO2 transporters (ictB) and improve electron transport (cyt c6; RieskeFeS). We have generated Arabidopsis, tobacco and wheat lines showing increase levels of several genes of interest. This process of gene-stacking will allow us to evaluate the combined changes in photosynthetic rate attributed to each of these transcripts.

1, Lopez-Calcagno PE, Brown KL, Simkin AJ, Fisk SJ, Lawson T, Raines CA. (2019). Simultaneous stimulation of RuBP regeneration and electron transport increases productivity and water use efficiency under field conditions. Nat Plants (accepted) (IF=10.3)

2, Simkin AJ*, Lopez-Calcagno PE, Raines CA. (2019). Feeding the world: Improving photosynthetic efficiency for sustainable crop production. J Exp Bot. 70(4):1119-1140. (IF=5.4).

3, Simkin AJ, McAusland L, Lawson T, Raines CA. (2017b). Over-expression of the RieskeFeS protein increases electron transport rates and biomass yield. Plant Phys 175: 134–145. (IF=6.8)

4, Driever SM, Simkin AJ, Alotaibi S, Fisk SJ, Madgwick PJ, Sparks CA, Jones HD, Lawson T, Parry MAJ, Raines CA. (2017). Increased SBPase activity improves photosynthesis and grain yield in wheat grown in greenhouse conditions. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 372: 1730. (IF=7.4)

5, Simkin AJ, Lopez-Calcagno, PE, Davey PA, Headland LR, Lawson T, Timm S, Bauwe H, Raines CA. (2017a). Simultaneous stimulation of sedoheptulose 1,7-bisphosphatase, fructose 1,6-bisphophate aldolase and the photorespiratory glycine decarboxylase H-protein increases CO2 assimilation, vegetative biomass and seed yield in Arabidopsis. Plant Biotech. J 15(7): 805-816. (IF=7.4)

6, Simkin AJ, McAusland L, Headland LR, Lawson T, Raines CA. (2015). Multigene manipulation of photosynthetic carbon assimilation increases CO2 fixation and biomass yield in tobacco. J Exp Bot. 66(13):4075-4090. (IF=5.8)

Thursday, March 21, 2019 through March 22
Time: 11:00
WUR – RADIX
Droevendaalsesteeg 1, Wageningen