Finally, are there realistic opportunities to raise the
theoretical maximum conversion efficiency? For C3
plants, defeating photorespiration is an obvious target.
This may be achieved by converting C3 crops to C4 or by
improving the specificity of Rubisco for CO2. Conversion
of a C3 to C4 crop would theoretically raise the
maximum solar energy conversion efficiency at 30 8C
from 4.6% to 6%. If Rubisco can be engineered to
completely eliminate the oxygenation reaction, this
would raise efficiency to 8.8%. This increase above
the theoretical efficiency for C4 photosynthesis is
because no additional ATP is required for concentrating
CO2. At present no Rubisco that lacks oxygenation
capacity has been identified, indeed most evidence
suggests that increase in specificity is at the expense
of catalytic rate [16]. However, by engineering the E. coli
glycolate catabolic pathway into Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis
thaliana) chloroplasts [32] NADH would be generated
in the conversion of the oxygenation product, glycolate,
to phosphoglycerate rather than reduced ferredoxin consumed
as in normal higher plant photorespiratory metabolism.
This pathway also uses only half the ATP of the
higher plant pathway, and serves to concentrate CO2 at
Rubisco. Based on the lower apparent CO2 compensation
points in the absence of mitochondrial respiration
of the transformed plants [32], we computed that these
transformed plants would have 14% more CO2 at
Rubisco in the light. Taking this and the halving of
the ATP requirement into account, if this introduction
were completely successful in bypassing the normal
photorespiratory pathway through the mitochondria
and peroxisomes, it would raise the maximum efficiency
in C3 plants from the 4.6% of Figure 2 to 5.2% at 30 8C. If
the plants are able to take advantage of the NADH
generated in the chloroplast by the introduced E. coli
glycolate catabolic pathway (e.g. production of ATP via a
chloroplast/mitochondria shuttle) even greater improvement
of the efficiency might be possible.