Recent advances in understanding and improving photosynthesis

Alicia V Perera-Castro; Jaume Flexas

doi:10.12703/b/9-5

Recent advances in understanding and improving photosynthesis

Fac Rev. 2020 Nov 6:9:5. doi: 10.12703/b/9-5. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Alicia V Perera-Castro¹, Jaume Flexas¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Biology, Universitat de les Illes Balears, INAGEA, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

PMID: 33659937
PMCID: PMC7886073
DOI: 10.12703/b/9-5

Abstract

Since 1893, when the word "photosynthesis" was first coined by Charles Reid Barnes and Conway MacMillan, our understanding of the elements and regulation of this complex process is far from being entirely understood. We aim to review the most relevant advances in photosynthesis research from the last few years and to provide a perspective on the forthcoming research in this field. Recent discoveries related to light sensing, harvesting, and dissipation; kinetics of CO₂ fixation; components and regulators of CO₂ diffusion through stomata and mesophyll; and genetic engineering for improving photosynthetic and production capacities of crops are addressed.

Keywords: engineering photosynthesis; light harvesting; mesophyll conductance; photosystem; rubisco; stomatal conductance.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

Alicia V. Perera-Castro and Jaume Flexas’s research was supported by the project EREMITA (PGC-2018-093824-B-C41) from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO, Spain) and the ERDF (FEDER). The Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (MECD, Spain) supported a pre-doctoral fellowship (FPU-02054) awarded to Alicia V. Perera-Castro. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.