HIE Research Seminar - Dr Florian Busch - ANU

Carbon loss due to photorespiration is a major limitation for assimilation in plants that lack an efficient C4 cycle. Some C3 grasses might have found a way to minimize this carbon loss by having a chloroplast arrangement that enhances the reassimilation of respired and photorespired CO2. I will describe a new method using 13CO2 and mass spectrometry that can be used to quantify the amount of reassimilation of CO2 via the intercellular space as well as within the cell. At current CO2 concentration the intracellular reassimilation accounts for a stimulation of the net assimilation rate of about 10%, with even higher rates of stimulation observed at low CO2 concentrations.