McCormick Lab (@mccormicklab.bsky.social)

Unique biogenesis and kinetics of hornwort Rubiscos revealed by synthetic biology systems Hornworts are non-vascular land plants, which diverged from vascular plants approximately 500 million years ago, yet the CO2 fixing enzyme (Rubisco) in hornworts has received little prior attention. This study develops the synthetic biology system to heterologously express hornwort Rubiscos and demonstrates that hornwort Rubiscos have different biogenesis dependencies. Further analyses of the kinetics of hornwort Rubiscos show that Rubiscos are indeed phylogenetically constrained. https://www.cell.com/molecular-plant/fulltext/S1674-2052(24)00352-6