Abstract
Summary Improving photosynthetic efficiency has recently emerged as a promising way to increase crop production in a sustainable manner. While chloroplast size may affect photosynthetic efficiency in several ways, we aimed to explore whether chloroplast size manipulation can be a viable approach to improving photosynthetic performance. Several tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ) lines with contrasting chloroplast sizes were generated via manipulation of chloroplast division genes to assess photosynthetic performance under steady‐state and fluctuating light. A selection of lines was included in a field trial to explore productivity. Lines with enlarged chloroplasts underperformed in most of the measured traits. Lines with smaller and more numerous chloroplasts showed a similar efficiency compared with wild‐type (WT) tobacco. Chloroplast size only weakly affected light absorptance and light profiles within the leaf. Increasing chloroplast size decreased mesophyll conductance ( g m ) but decreased chloroplast size did not increase g m . Increasing chloroplast size reduced chloroplast movements and enhanced non‐photochemical quenching. The chloroplast smaller than WT appeared to be no better than WT for photosynthetic efficiency and productivity under field conditions. The results indicate that chloroplast size manipulations are therefore unlikely to lead to higher photosynthetic efficiency or growth.
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Claims 9
Claim · model-written summary
Lines with enlarged chloroplasts underperformed on most measured traits.
- Taxon
- tobacco
Nicotiana tabacumt0 - Material
- Lines with enlarged chloroplastse0
- Outcome
- most of the measured traitse0
- Direction
- underperformede0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Lines with enlarged chloroplasts underperformed in most of the measured traits.”
t0“Several tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ) lines”
Claim · model-written summary
Lines with smaller and more numerous chloroplasts had similar efficiency to wild-type tobacco.
- Taxon
- tobaccoNicotiana tabacume0
- Material
- Lines with smaller and more numerous chloroplastse0
- Outcome
- efficiencye0
- Direction
- similare0
- Comparator
- wild‐type (WT) tobaccoe0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Lines with smaller and more numerous chloroplasts showed a similar efficiency compared with wild‐type (WT) tobacco.”
Claim · model-written summary
Chloroplast size weakly affected leaf light absorptance and light profiles.
- Taxon
- tobaccoNicotiana tabacumt0
- Organ / stage
- leafe0
- Outcome
- light absorptance and light profilese0
- Qualifier
- Chloroplast sizee0
Not reportedDirection
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Chloroplast size only weakly affected light absorptance and light profiles within the leaf.”
t0“Several tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ) lines”
Claim · model-written summary
Increasing chloroplast size decreased mesophyll conductance.
- Taxon
- tobaccoNicotiana tabacumt0
- Treatment
- Increasing chloroplast sizee0
- Outcome
- mesophyll conductancee0
- Direction
- decreasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Increasing chloroplast size decreased mesophyll conductance ( g m ) but decreased chloroplast size did not increase g m .”
t0“Several tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ) lines”
Claim · model-written summary
Decreasing chloroplast size did not increase mesophyll conductance.
- Taxon
- tobaccoNicotiana tabacumt0
- Treatment
- decreased chloroplast sizee0
- Outcome
- g me0
- Direction
- did not increasee0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Increasing chloroplast size decreased mesophyll conductance ( g m ) but decreased chloroplast size did not increase g m .”
t0“Several tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ) lines”
Claim · model-written summary
Increasing chloroplast size reduced chloroplast movements.
- Taxon
- tobaccoNicotiana tabacumt0
- Treatment
- Increasing chloroplast sizee0
- Outcome
- chloroplast movementse0
- Direction
- reducede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Increasing chloroplast size reduced chloroplast movements and enhanced non‐photochemical quenching.”
t0“Several tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ) lines”
Claim · model-written summary
Increasing chloroplast size enhanced non-photochemical quenching.
- Taxon
- tobaccoNicotiana tabacumt0
- Treatment
- Increasing chloroplast sizee0
- Outcome
- non‐photochemical quenchinge0
- Direction
- enhancede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Increasing chloroplast size reduced chloroplast movements and enhanced non‐photochemical quenching.”
t0“Several tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ) lines”
Claim · model-written summary
Chloroplasts smaller than wild type appeared no better for field photosynthetic efficiency and productivity.
- Taxon
- tobaccoNicotiana tabacumt0
- Material
- chloroplast smaller than WTe0
- Outcome
- photosynthetic efficiency and productivitye0
- Direction
- no bettere0
- Comparator
- WTe0
- Setting
- field conditionse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The chloroplast smaller than WT appeared to be no better than WT for photosynthetic efficiency and productivity under field conditions.”
t0“Several tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ) lines”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors judged chloroplast size manipulation unlikely to raise photosynthetic efficiency or growth.
- Taxon
- tobaccoNicotiana tabacumt0
- Treatment
- chloroplast size manipulationse0
- Outcome
- unlikely to lead to higher photosynthetic efficiency or growthe0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The results indicate that chloroplast size manipulations are therefore unlikely to lead to higher photosynthetic efficiency or growth.”
t0“Several tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ) lines”