Enhanced thylakoid photoprotection can increase yield and canopy radiation use efficiency in rice

Hubbart, Stella; Smillie, Ian R.A.; Heatley, Matthew; Swarup, Ranjan; Foo, Chuan Ching; Zhao, Liang; Murchie, Erik H.

Abstract

High sunlight can raise plant growth rates but can potentially cause cellular damage. The likelihood of deleterious effects is lowered by a sophisticated set of photoprotective mechanisms, one of the most important being the controlled dissipation of energy from chlorophyll within photosystem II (PSII) measured as non-photochemical quenching (NPQ). Although ubiquitous, the role of NPQ in plant productivity remains uncertain because it momentarily reduces the quantum efficiency of photosynthesis. Here we used plants overexpressing the gene encoding a central regulator of NPQ, the protein PsbS, within a major crop species (rice) to assess the effect of photoprotection at the whole canopy scale. We accounted for canopy light interception, to our knowledge for the first time in this context. We show that in comparison to wild-type plants, psbS overexpressors increased canopy radiation use efficiency and grain yield in fluctuating light, demonstrating that photoprotective mechanisms should be altered to improve rice crop productivity.

Citation

Hubbart, S., Smillie, I. R., Heatley, M., Swarup, R., Foo, C. C., Zhao, L., & Murchie, E. H. (2018). Enhanced thylakoid photoprotection can increase yield and canopy radiation use efficiency in rice. Communications Biology, 1, Article 22. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-018-0026-6

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 1, 2018
• Publication Date: Mar 22, 2018
• Deposit Date: Mar 22, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 22, 2018
• Journal: Communications Biology
• Electronic ISSN: 2399-3642
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1
• Article Number: 22
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-018-0026-6
• Keywords: light responses; non-photochemical quenching
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/921096
• Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0026-6
• Related Public URLs: https://www.nature.com/commsbio/
• Contract Date: Mar 22, 2018