The characteristics of CO2 assimilation of photosynthesis and chlorophyll fluorescence in transgenic PEPC rice

With PEPC, PPDK, NADP-ME and PEPC+ PPDK transgenic and untransformed rice (Orysa sativa L.), the activities of related C4 photosynthesis enzymes, the chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, CO2 exchange and other physiological indexes were compared, in which the physiological characteristics of PEPC transgenic rice were mainly studied. The results were as follows: ( i ) The activities of PEPC in PEPC transgenic rice were 20-fold higher than those in untransformed rice; the light-saturation photosynthetic rates and the carboxylation efficiency of PEPC transgenic rice were increased by 55% and 50% more than those of untransformed rice, respectively, while the CO2 compensation point decreased by 27%. (ii) The PS II photochemical efficiency (F v/F m) and photochemical quenching (q p) of transgenic PEPC rice decreased less in comparison with those of untransformed rice after the treatment with high light intensity (3 h) or methyl viologen (MV), a photooxidative reagent, which demonstrated that the tolerance of PEPC transgenic rice to photoinhibition and photooxidation was enhanced. (iii) Under the condition of high light intensity, the activity of RuBPCase in PEPC transgenic rice did not obviously vary while the activity induced of carbonic anhydrase (CA) in PEPC transgenic rice increased by 1.8 fold. These results would provide some beneficial enlightment for revealing the mechanism of high photosynthetic efficiency and breeding with high photosynthetic efficiency in rice.