Photosynthesis

Guest edited by Professor Christine Foyer, Professor Jeremy Harbinson and Dr Alberta Pinnola

Photosynthesis is the engine for life on Earth. The rate and efficiency of photosynthesis are major traits determining crop yields. Understanding the mechanisms that regulate light energy usage and chloroplast metabolism are fundamental to crop improvement. The papers in this collection, published in the Biochemical Journal and guest edited by Professor Christine Foyer, Professor Jeremy Harbinson and Dr Alberta Pinnola, seek to characterise these regulatory networks and identify the bottlenecks that limit photosynthetic efficiency. Moreover, they add to our understanding of how chloroplasts function as sensors of changes in light intensity and other environmental cues, instigating signalling cascades that influence gene expression. This work also encompasses how photosynthetic metabolism might adapt to a high future CO2 world with its increasingly unpredictable climate.