{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/rubisco-function-evolution-and-engineering","title":"Rubisco function, evolution, and engineering","arxiv_id":"2207.10773","date":"2022-07-21","proceeding":null,"authors":["Noam Prywes","Naiya R Phillips","Owen T Tuck","Luis E Valentin-Alvarado","David F Savage"],"abstract":"Carbon fixation is the process by which CO2 is converted from a gas into biomass. The Calvin Benson Bassham (CBB) cycle is the dominant carbon fixation pathway on earth, driving >99.5% of the ~120 billion tons of carbon that are \"fixed\" as sugar, by plants, algae and cyanobacteria. The carboxylase enzyme in the CBB, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (rubisco), fixes one CO2 molecule per turn of the cycle. Despite being critical to the assimilation of carbon, rubisco's kinetic rate is not very fast and it is a bottleneck in flux through the pathway. This presents a paradox - why hasn't rubisco evolved to be a better catalyst? Many hypothesize that the catalytic mechanism of rubisco is subject to one or more trade-offs, and that rubisco variants have been optimized for their native physiological environment. Here we review the evolution and biochemistry of rubisco through the lens of structure and mechanism in order to understand what trade-offs limit its improvement. We also review the many attempts to improve rubisco itself and, thereby, promote plant growth.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.10773v1","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.10773v1.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"abstracts"},"code_links":[],"tasks":[],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[{"slug":"file-s1","name":"File S1","full_name":"Carboxylase properties table"},{"slug":"file-s2","name":"File S2","full_name":"Kinda of Rubisco Table"},{"slug":"file-s3","name":"File S3","full_name":"Rubisco sequence table"},{"slug":"file-s4","name":"File S4","full_name":"tree file of all rubiscos at 65% dereplication"},{"slug":"file-s5","name":"File S5","full_name":"tree file of Form IV rubiscos (RLPs) at 70% dereplication"},{"slug":"file-s6","name":"File S6","full_name":"tree file of Form I rubiscos at 85% dereplication"},{"slug":"file-s7","name":"File S7","full_name":"tree file of Form I rubiscos at 85% dereplication LG+R8"}],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"atlas_url":null,"mcp":null,"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers"},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}