Erik B Current Event Post

  Scientists have "hacked" photosynthesis, and it                           could help them speed up food production

 Article by ScienceAlert Staff on 9/19/2014

Post by Erik B

Source: http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-qhackedq-photosynthesis-and-it-could-help-them-speed-up-food-production

You’ve probably heard of the process from which plants turn sunlight into nutrients, but what if it was possible to make plants make more nutrients and then produce more edible fruit. Well scientists in the UK and USA have found a way to make plants photosynthesize more with enzymes from a type of cyanobacteria. For a long time scientists have been trying to improve photosynthesis for plants by enhancing an abundant enzyme called Rubisco that is mostly found in leaves and allows plants to photosynthesize. The scientists in the UK and USA genetically place the Rubisco from a cyanobacterium known as synechococcus elongatus into the chloroplast, which is the organelle that photosynthesis occurs in, of some tobacco plants. After the tobacco plants with the enhanced Rubisco had photosynthesized the scientists found that they had a faster sugar production than a different group of tobacco plants without the enhanced Rubisco. "Hearing the results of this experiment for the first time was definitely one of those 'Eureka!' moments you live for as a scientist," Maureen Hanson, one of the researchers at Cornell University who took part in this experiment. An important reason that these scientists were able to do this while many others were unsuccessful is that these scientists added two bacterial proteins to the tobacco plants to help them use the cyanobacterial enzyme. One group of tobacco plants received a protein to help the Rubisco fold correctly and the other group received a protein to keep the Rubisco from losing its structure. There are still some problems with the cyanobacterial Rubisco though. One problem is that that the Rubisco sometimes wastes its energy by reacting to oxygen instead of carbon dioxide. Another problem is that the scientists have only tested this with tobacco, which has a well researched genome, but it is unclear whether this will work with other plants and needs to be studied further to determine this. Although there are still problems with this procedure, it still provides hope for increased crop production to help feed the world.

I think that this article is very important, because it provides hope that world hunger could be ended or at least decreased. People who are hungry would be affected by this discovery, but agriculturists would be also be affected, because it could improve their crop growth and their income. This article sounds a little too good to be true, but I think it is reliable, because many other search results include basically the same content. I chose this article, because I am interested in plant genetics and because I’m hoping that this discovery may help with the problem of world hunger. Also, if the attempt to increase crop growth does succeed, I would hope that the produce at the grocery store would decrease in price so that I could buy it for cheaper in the future. I learned from this article about how photosynthesis works and the name of an important enzyme, Rubisco. I agree with the scientists that this could be used to help with the world’s growing population, but I’m a bit skeptical as to whether it will be funded by a trustworthy sponsor. I’m a bit worried that the sponsors might charge too much to provide the enhanced plants to developing countries and that nothing will improve due to this. I think that this article also connects with my class’s cell unit, because words like “chloroplast” and “organelle” appeared in the article. The only possible cons that I see in this discovery is that I’m not sure how common the cyanobacterium for the process is or whether the Rubisco enhancement will pass genetically to the next generation of plants. Overall this discovery seems positive and useful.