There is a huge opportunity within the agricultural, forestry and lower plant sectors for scalable carbon removal. This doesn’t mean simply relying on planting more and more land, but the greater impact lies in overcoming scientific barriers to increasing the photosynthetic efficiency of plants and algae themselves.
“Most plants rely on CO₂ moving passively into the plant, whereas algae are like a hoover going out and sucking it up. We are taking the mechanism used in algae to create a universal molecular chain that can be engineered into most plants, including trees and crops, adapting them to act like CO₂ super hoovers.”
Luke Mackinder – Professor of Plant Biology, University of York
The aim of this research is to supercharge the productivity of the CO₂ fixing enzyme found in plants and algae (Rubisco) by introducing one of nature’s key carbon fixing structures (pyrenoids). Pyrenoids are subcellular micro-compartments found in chloroplasts of many algae and their main function is to act as centres of carbon dioxide fixation.
It therefore has the potential to significantly enhance the productivity and carbon sequestration capabilities of plants and algae that currently lack pyrenoids. This approach doesn’t rely on re-engineering the whole biology of each type of plant but the more easily integrated and scalable method of introducing a universally compatible biological component.
The scientists have developed a broad range of cutting-edge tools, diverse methodologies and high throughput approaches allowing them to rapidly adapt and develop solutions to new challenges and draw on a breadth of expertise and knowledge within the labs.
The potential impact of this work is highly significant, since it would allow rapid engineering into a range of different algae, crops and trees for biotechnology applications, food production and carbon removal. As such, it could provide a platform for large scale deployment across a range of agricultural practices for crops and other plants/applications, enabling carbon removal at gigaton scale without raising the demands on land. It would also have potential to improve crop yields and biomass accumulation, while reducing nitrogen and water demand, as well as improving growth robustness across environments.
This research, led by a consortium of leading international scientists in the UK and US, leverages and builds on 13 years of successful collaborative research focused on understanding and engineering enhanced CO₂ fixation. Together, their efforts have led to significant advances in our basic understanding of the pyrenoid-based CO₂ -concentrating mechanism (CCM), early successes in expressing algal components in higher plants, and recently, a predictive model of the CCM.
Luke Mackinder is a Professor of Plant Biology at the University of York and a UKRI-Future Leaders Fellow. Professor Mackinder played a pivotal role in the discovery of the Rubisco binding EPYC1 pyrenoid assembly protein and the dissection of the components and function of the Chlamydomonas pyrenoid. Luke was awarded the Society for Experimental Biology President’s Medal in Cell Biology for this work. Recent discoveries include the identification of Chlamydomonas thylakoid HCO₃- transporters and determination of the pyrenoid proteome via proximity-labelling.
Martin Jonikas is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. His group has made discoveries that underpin the research focus of this project, including: the discovery that the pyrenoid is a phase-separated organelle; the identification and characterisation of pyrenoid components; the discovery of EPYC1 and its characterisation; the discovery of a mechanism for protein targeting to the pyrenoid and for assembly of its sub-compartments and the development of a biophysical model of the CCM.
Alistair McCormick is Professor of Plant Engineering Biology at the University of Edinburgh. Professor McCormick has made key advances in pyrenoid engineering into plants, including: demonstrating that most algal components naturally localise to the correct cellular sub-compartment when expressed in plants; characterisation of the EPYC1 Rubisco linker; characterisation of hybrid algal/plant Rubiscos; and the first reconstitution of a pyrenoid-matrix in a land plant (Atkinson et al. 2020 Nat Comm).
“In its latest report to policymakers outlining mitigation approaches, the IPCC has identified carbon sequestration through forestry and agriculture as vital and offering ‘substantial potential’ to reduce net emissions by 2030.
We are really close to having proof of concept for this key biological breakthrough and within the next 2-3 years aim to test engineered pyrenoid functionality in model plant and algal systems. Once we get to that point, we are confident there will be a lot of opportunity to bring in biotech and scale up.”
Luke Mackinder – Professor of Plant Biology, University of York
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