Enhancing Photosynthesis in Clamydomonas reinhardtii using carbonic anhydrase mimetics

This project will impact upon the societal challenge affecting the globe, as to how we cater for the food, fibre and fuel needs of an ever-increasing population. Photosynthetic efficiency is only ~1% whereas the theoretical maximum is ~6-8% giving potential for great improvements. One major cause of this inefficiency is due to the

Calvin cycle, which consists of a network of enzymes involved in carbon assimilation. Typical enzymes process ~1000 molecules s-1, but the Calvin cycle enzyme, Rubisco, fixes only ~3 CO2 molecules per second. Furthermore, this enzyme suffers from a lack of specificity, meaning that it cannot only catalyse the reaction with CO2, but also a competing reaction with O2, which causes a loss to the plant. This causes a constant drain on the sugar

substrate pool, and results in a decrease of carbon fixation efficiency by ~50%. Plant cells compensate by making Rubisco the most abundant enzyme on earth, but this comes at a cost, with a large proportion of the plant's nitrogen requirements resulting from the need to produce the enzyme.