Strategies to Enhance Photosynthesis for the Improvement of Crop Yields

Abstract

The impact of climate change and the rising demand for food, feed, and biofuels requires an increase in crop productivity without the use of additional land, water, or agrochemicals. Despite recent progress in plant breeding and biotechnology, improving crop productivity beyond existing yield potentials remains one of the greatest challenges in agricultural research. Photosynthesis is a critical process that underlies plant growth and agronomic performance, so the improvement of photosynthetic efficiency is necessary to achieve higher crop yields. Several biotechnological approaches have been proposed to increase the rate of photosynthesis in important C3 crops, including the engineering of RuBisCO, enhancing the activity of Calvin cycle enzymes, introducing CO2-concentration mechanisms and manipulating photorespiration. However, few of these strategies have led to significantly higher crop yields in practice. In this review, we will briefly discuss the limitations of photosynthesis in C3 plants before focusing on current strategies to overcome the bottlenecks and achieve higher agricultural productivity. Finally, we consider the remaining challenges and perspectives for the future development of novel strategies to enhance the efficiency of photosynthesis.