About the project
Crop4Clima wants to improve crop resilience through a novel and unique metabolic pathway that reduces inefficiencies in carbon dioxide fixation, improves drought tolerance, and increases yield.
Suboptimal plant metabolism
As plants grow, they take up CO₂ but naturally release up to a third of it through photorespiration, reducing potential yields by up to 30% in arid conditions. One crucial factor is an enzyme called Rubisco, which fixes CO₂ in plants. This enzyme often mistakes oxygen for CO₂, leading to the CO₂ release and the formation of a compound called 2-PG, which is harmful to plants and that must be recycled via the photorespiration pathway, dissipating energy, and CO₂.
Improving Yield with our Innovative Pathway
Our previous research within the FutureAgriculture project on basic design principles of microbial and plant metabolism enabled us to engineer improved carbon-dioxide uptake mechanisms. This resulted in the development of the patented TaCo pathway (TartronylCoA pathway), the first photorespiration-bypass pathway that fixes CO₂ instead of releasing it.
It uses three novel enzymes (5 subunits) to turn the toxic photorespiration byproduct 2-PG into usable metabolites that can feed the Calvin-BB cycle (CBB cycle).
Building Upon Past Results
Over the 5 years of FutureAgriculture’s project, the TaCo pathway has been validated in 2 ways
in vitro, proving the capability of carbon uptake of photorespiration up to 40%.
in planta in dicot and monocot species, proving a 20% drought tolerance with 80% less water and fertilisation.
In Crop4Clima, this pathway will be further optimized and introduced into rapeseed lines for validation in greenhouses and field trials. From the trials, we will collect diverse data, which will be used to create an integrated life cycle assessment for a broad perspective on the sustainability of our rapeseed crops.