During photosynthesis, an enzyme called rubisco catalyzes a key reaction ' the incorporation of carbon dioxide into organic compounds to create sugars. However, rubisco, which is believed to be the most abundant enzyme on Earth, is very inefficient compared to the other enzymes involved in photosynthesis. MIT chemists have now shown that they can greatly enhance a version of rubisco found in bacteria from a low-oxygen environment. Using a process known as directed evolution, they identified mutations that could boost rubisco's catalytic efficiency by up to 25 percent. 'This is, I think, a compelling demonstration of successful improvement of a rubisco's enzymatic properties, holding out a lot of hope for engineering other forms of rubisco,' says Matthew Shoulders, the Class of 1942 Professor of Chemistry at MIT. Shoulders and Robert Wilson, a research scientist in the Department of Chemistry, are the senior authors of the new study, which appears this week in the Proceedings of the...
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