Turn one gene up, another down. Enhancing the photosynthetic capacity of plants will likely require learning how to conduct a complex orchestra of genes. Achieving this could help sequester at least part of the carbon dioxide emissions driving climate change, while also increasing crop yields.

Researchers at the Innovative Genomics Institute, founded by Jennifer Doudna, are focusing on a key enzyme (rubisco) and on mapping the regulatory elements that could be edited to optimize photosynthesis in future crops. In a study recently published in Nature Biotechnology, Evan Groover and colleagues describe a new approach for understanding how to modulate the expression levels of genes involved in the essential biochemical process that converts solar energy, water, and carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen.

Using cells isolated from sorghum leaves, the team simulated the effects of thousands of editing interventions on the regulatory DNA controlling photosynthesis, identifying those that may represent the most effective strategies. Sorghum itself is an important crop, but the researchers expect that these findings will be generalizable to other major plant species. Finally, the IGI notes that the resulting data will be useful to train and validate predictive machine learning models of plant genomes.