Back to the past: Improving photosynthesis with cyanocaterial genes

VICINO, PAULA; ARCE ROCÍO; LODEYRO, ANABELLA F; DEMARCHI, MARIANA

Cyanobacterial lifestyle and its applications in biotechnology

Elsevier

Año: 2021; p. 61 - 98

Highyield and more tolerant crops will be required as it is predicted that foodproduction will need to double by 2050. Engineering strategies aimed atimproving yield and stress tolerance have mostly focused on overexpression ofplant-endogenous genes belonging to molecular networks for stress perception orresponses. However, these approaches are limited by the genetic stock of survivingplant species and by the unwanted consequences ofgene silencing. Regarding that, cyanobacteria share many metabolic pathwayswith plant cells, especially with chloroplasts, offering a rich source of genesfor plant genetic engineering. Still, a few cyanobacterial genes involved intolerance to environmental or nutritional stresses have disappeared from theplant genome during the evolutionary pathway from cyanobacteria to vascularplants, raising the possibility of recovering these adaptive advantages byre-introducing those lost genes into plants. In this chapter, we havesummarized examples in which this strategy has been applied to plant geneticengineering with considerable success, specially modifying photosyntheticelectron transport chain. Cyanobacterial genome and data mining approach offersa significant biotechnological tool for the design of transgenic plants withhigher productivity and enhanced tolerance to environmental stress.