this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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New pathway engineered into plants lets them suck up more CO₂ - Ars Technica (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by otters_raft@lemmy.ca to c/biology@mander.xyz
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Lots of people are excited about the idea of using plants to help us draw down some of the excess carbon dioxide we've been pumping into the atmosphere. It would be nice to think that we could reforest our way out of the mess we're creating, but recent studies have indicated there's simply not enough productive land for this to work out.

One alternative might be to get plants to take up carbon dioxide more efficiently. Unfortunately, the enzyme that incorporates carbon dioxide into photosynthesis, called RUBISCO, is remarkably inefficient. So, a team of researchers in Taiwan decided to try something new—literally. They put together a set of enzymes that added a new-to-nature biochemical cycle to plants that let it incorporate carbon far more efficiently. The resulting plants grew larger and incorporated more carbon.

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[–] Skyrmir@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

I can see a super productive version of algae being released into the oceans to solve our co2 problem.

And I wonder how long until the vast majority of the biosphere would collapse because of it.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What could go wrong

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 7 points 2 weeks ago

Dunno, weed on steroids being even more proficient at outcompeting local florae?

[–] why0y@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 weeks ago

Regardless of the lipid accumulation, they didn't comment at all in the arstechnica piece about how the energetics are different 2ATP per COH3- in McG vs 1.5 ATP per COH3- in Calvin and where the glycolate is coming from. The whole point was to comment on RUBISCO inefficiency which they did not do, and the McG pathway consumes more ATP per carbon fixed, which is kind of against the idea of fixing more carbon in the first place. I'm not sure how truly amazing this article is, given the energetics, the lack of comment on stoich comparisons, and the glaring error of not commenting at all about the source of the glycolate.

[–] Arkthos@pawb.social 3 points 2 weeks ago

Honestly doesn't seem like a terrible idea. Yeah reducing our emissions is better but frankly I do not have faith that is going to happen, certainly not to the extent that would be needed.

Of course we are playing with fire here, but if we can also ensure these plants are bad at naturally propagating then I guess we should be ok.