According to botany textbooks, photosynthesis is a process in which plants use the energy of light and create organic substances, while releasing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide. In reality, everything is not quite like that: photosynthesis processes are known when oxygen is not released and carbon dioxide is not absorbed; only energy–carrying ATP molecules are synthesized - this is the so-called anoxygenic photosynthesis. Its quantitative assessment is controversial among researchers. Previously, it was generally believed that the proportion of anoxygenic photosynthesis in the total photosynthesis of higher plants is small. However, as it turned out, most of photosynthesis may not correspond to the "school" formulation.
The research group of the Southern Federal University, together with the staff of the Russian Research Institute for the Integrated Use and Protection of Water Resources, showed that anoxygenic photosynthesis is greatly underestimated and may prevail in plant leaves. The scientists used methods of pulsed fluorometry and a new Fourier photoacoustic spectrometry method developed at the Southern Federal University. So, recently, variegated dracaena plants have been studied, which have light green and dark green sectors (stripes) of leaves.
"Light green sectors contain 7-8 times less chlorophyll than normal greens. What was our surprise when we found that both absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen at the same rate!" says the head of the group, associate professor, head of the laboratory of Ecology and Plant Physiology of the Southern Federal University Vladimir Lysenko. - "We assumed and received data indicating that in the dark green sectors chlorophyll is "occupied" mainly by anoxygenic photosynthesis. In the light green sectors, this chlorophyll is lost along with the loss of part of anoxygenic photosynthesis, whereas normal, oxygenic photosynthesis remains unchanged."
Scientists are not going to stop there. "The challenge for us is an intriguing question," adds Vladimir Lysenko, "why do plants need an excess of chlorophyll and anoxygenic photosynthesis if they grow well anyway? So far, we assume that all this is necessary to protect plants from excess light, but the reality may be much more complicated. We will continue to work on this."
The team of authors of the article is mainly represented by young scientists, including students and postgraduates. As Vladimir Lysenko informed us, the idea of the work belonged to Academy of biology and biotechnology student Elizaveta Chalenko, who also received the first experimental data. In total, during her undergraduate and graduate studies at SFedU, Elizabeth became a co-author of 4 publications in journals of the first quartile.
The data obtained were previously presented in a series of papers published in the world's leading scientific journals: Scientific Reports, Information Processing in Agriculture, Planta, Photosynthetica, Horticulturae, Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants, Journal of Plant Physiology, Functional Plant Biology. Completing this list is the work just published in the journal Plant Physiology and Biochemistry (France), carried out jointly with scientists from the Russian Research Institute for the Integrated Use and Protection of Water Resources.
The work on the topic of the publication was carried out on the basis of the Laboratory of Ecology and Plant Physiology (Botanical Garden, Academy of Biology and Biotechnology of the Southern Federal University) and supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation No. 22-14-00338.
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