OREANDA-NEWS. September 15, 2010. UT Scientists Study Photosynthesis to Facilitate the Development of Highly Productive Plant Varieties, reported the press-centre of UT.

Agu Laisk and Vello Oja, researchers at the UT Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, have developed an apparatus that will help scientists gain a closer insight into processes that determine the speed of photosynthesis in plants. The results of research obtained using the apparatus are expected to assist researchers, for example, in breeding new and more productive plant varieties. The long-standing efforts of the UT researchers who designed the apparatus were recognised at the 15th International Congress on Photosynthesis in Beijing, where they were awarded a prestigious innovation prize.

Photosynthesis is the process that uses energy from sunlight to manufacture organic compounds – the source of all energy in living nature – by combining atmospheric carbon dioxide and water. In order to determine the factors that exert the greatest impact on the rate of photosynthesis, the authors of the apparatus set out to design and construct a set of devices that would allow them to study photosynthesis in closer detail.

According to Professor Agu Laisk, so far researchers have found it difficult to investigate the processes that take place during photosynthesis because conducting such investigations would effectively mean extracting the photosynthesis apparatus from the plant leaf and placing it under a microscope. "By doing so, we would also destroy many important relationships that play a part in photosynthesis, including those that affect the speed of the entire process. The speed of photosynthesis, however, is an important factor that determines the plant's growth rate and productivity," explained Agu Laisk.

In order to be able to pinpoint the factors that determine the speed of the process, the plant leaf has to be placed in a variety of different conditions by changing variables such as ambient temperature, the intensity of light, the concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide, while measuring as many of the parameters related to photosynthesis as possible. Unlike in previous research, in the course of their investigations UT scientists paid special attention to changes and fluctuations that can be observed in the photosynthesis  process as a result of momentary variations in external conditions. "Such a complex kinetic approach has yielded good results not only in 'reassembling' the photosynthesis process from the constituent components investigated, but it has also helped us to discover new information regarding these components, whose function in a living system differs from that which they have in isolation," said Agu Laisk.

The research results obtained and the conclusions drawn on their basis will help scientists to breed more productive plant varieties. In fact, it may be possible one day to imitate photosynthesis and build artificial systems whose efficiency as a source of renewable energy may be even higher than that of natural photosynthesis encountered in plants.

Photosynthesis will soon be drawn into the limelight of academic attention at the University of Tartu – on October 11-14, the 10th Nordic Photosynthesis Congress will be held here, hosted by the UT Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology.

Additional information: Agu Laisk, Senior Research Fellow in Plant Physiology, telephone +372 526 7922, e-mail agu.laisk@ut.ee