Photosynthetic Carbon Assimilation

The photosynthetic fixation of carbon dioxide into organic compounds is mediated by the enzyme ribulose 1,S-bisphosphate (RuBP) carboxylase. The diversity of current research on this protein attests to its central role in biomass productivity, and suggests the importance of a timely and broadly based review. This Symposium was the first devoted exclusively to RuBP carboxylase and was attended by agronomists, plant physiologists, biochemists, molecular biologists, and crystallographers. Special efforts were made to involve young scientists in addition to established investigators. It is a pleasure to acknowledge financial support provided by the Department of Energy, the United States Department of Agricul ture, and the National Science Foundation, and the valued assistance of agency representatives, Drs. Joe Key, Robert Rabson, Elijah Romanoff, and Donald Senich. Thanks are due to Mrs. Margaret Dienes, without whose editorial skills this volume could not have been produced, and to Mrs. Helen Kondratuk as Symposium Coordinator. Finally, we wish to record our indebtedness to Dr. Alexander Hollaender for his tireless efforts in support of all aspects of this Symposium.

“Photosynthesis: Plastid Biology, Energy Conversion and Carbon Assimilation” was conceived as a comprehensive treatment touching on most of the processes important for photosynthesis. Most of the chapters provide a broad coverage that, it is hoped, will be accessible to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers looking to broaden their knowledge of photosynthesis. For biologists, biochemists, and biophysicists, this volume will provide quick background understanding for the breadth of issues in photosynthesis that are important in research and instructional settings. This volume will be of interest to advanced undergraduates in plant biology, and plant biochemistry and to graduate students and instructors wanting a single reference volume on the latest understanding of the critical components of photosynthesis.

This book focuses on the very latest developments in our understanding of how plants use light energy and fixed carbon to assimilate nitrate and ammonium into the organic compounds required for growth. From the partitioning of organic nitrogen within the photosynthetic apparatus, through the primary processes of reduction of nitrate and nitrite and the assimilation of ammonium and its cycling in photorespiration, the complex interactions inherent in the crosstalk between carbon and nitrogen assimilation are considered and exciting new developments such as nitric oxide production evaluated. Attention is paid throughout to the close coordination of photosynthetic and respiratory processes in nitrogen assimilation. Emerging concepts of the interdependence of chloroplasts and mitochondria are described, and essential communication, transport and signalling processes are highlighted.

M. GIBBS and E. LATZKO In the preface to his Experiments upon Vegetables, INGEN-Housz wrote in 1779: "The discovery of Dr. PRIESTLEY that plants have a power of correcting bad air . . . shows . . . that the air, spoiled and rendered noxious to animals by their breath ing in it, serves to plants as a kind of nourishment. " INGEN-Housz then described his own experiments in which he established that plants absorb this "nourishment" more actively in brighter sunlight. By the turn of the eighteenth century, the "nourishment" was recognized to be CO . Photosynthetic CO2 assimilation, the 2 major subject of this encyclopedia volume, had been discovered. How plants assimilate the CO was a question several successive generations 2 of investigators were unable to answer; scientific endeavor is not a discipline in which it is easy to "put the cart before the horse". The horse, in this case, was the acquisition of radioactive isotopes of carbon, especially 14c. The cart which followed contained the Calvin cycle, formulated by CALVIN, BENSON and BASSHAM in the early 1950's after (a) their detection of glycerate-3-P as the first stable product of CO fixation, (b) their discovery, and that by HORECKER 2 and RACKER, of the COz-fixing enzyme RuBP carboxylase, and (c) the reports by GIBBS and by ARNON of an enzyme (NADP-linked GAP dehydrogenase) capable of using the reducing power made available from sunlight (via photo synthetic electron transport) to reduce the glycerate-3-P to the level of sugars.

Unites a biological and a biotechnological perspective on cyanobacteria, and includes the industrial aspects and applications of cyanobacteria Cyanobacteria Biotechnology offers a guide to the interesting and useful features of cyanobacteria metabolism that keeps true to a biotechnology vision. In one volume the book brings together both biology and biotechnology to illuminate the core acpects and principles of cyanobacteria metabolism. Designed to offer a practical approach to the metabolic engineering of cyanobacteria, the book contains relevant examples of how this metabolic "module" is currently being engineered and how it could be engineered in the future. The author includes information on the requirements and real-world experiences of the industrial applications of cyanobacteria. This important book: Brings together biology and biotechnology in order to gain insight into the industrial relevant topic of cyanobacteria Introduces the key aspects of the metabolism of cyanobacteria Presents a grounded, practical approach to the metabolic engineering of cyanobacteria Offers an analysis of the requirements and experiences for industrial cyanobacteria Provides a framework for readers to design their own processes Written for biotechnologists, microbiologists, biologists, biochemists, Cyanobacteria Biotechnology provides a systematic and clear volume that brings together the biological and biotechnological perspective on cyanobacteria.

According to many textbooks, carbohydrates are the photosynthesis and mitochondrial respiration fluctuate in a circadian manner in almost every unique final products of plant photosynthesis. However, the photoautotrophic production of organic organism studied. In addition, external triggers and environmental influences necessitate precise and nitrogenous compounds may be just as old, in appropriate re-adjustment of relative flux rates, to evolutionary terms, as carbohydrate synthesis. In the algae and plants of today, the light-driven assimilation prevent excessive swings in energy/resource provision of nitrogen remains a key function, operating and use. This requires integrated control of the alongside and intermeshing with photosynthesis and expression and activity of numerous key enzymes in respiration. Photosynthetic production of reduced photosynthetic and respiratory pathways, in order to carbon and its reoxidation in respiration are necessary co-ordinate carbon partioning and nitrogen assim- ation. to produce both the energy and the carbon skeletons required for the incorporation of inorganic nitrogen This volume has two principal aims. The first is to into amino acids. Conversely, nitrogen assimilation provide a comprehensive account of the very latest developments in our understanding of how green is required to sustain the output of organic carbon cells reductively incorporate nitrate and ammonium and nitrogen. Together, the sugars and amino acids into the organic compounds required for growth.