The rise in heatwaves and drought severely affect the capacity of crops to retain water and capture CO2 during photosynthesis, resulting in global yield reductions. One of the most promising approaches to enhance crop production in these conditions is to modify the photosynthetic capacity of plants. Indeed, some lineages have evolved mechanisms like C4 photosynthesis and the Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) to cope with some of these aspects. C4 species are extremely efficient at CO2 fixation but vulnerable to severe drought. Meanwhile, CAM plants are less productive but very capable of coping with significant drought periods.
In this regard, our group is interested in understanding how global re-arrangements of gene regulatory networks have shaped the evolution of carbon concentrating mechanisms like C4 and CAM and to use this information to engineer novel photosynthetic pathways. To do so, we employ different genomics, phenomics and synthetic biology tools.
This approach seeks to address the critical issue of sustaining crop productivity in the face of changing environmental conditions.
