HONG KONG — Researchers at a university in China say they have identified the gene behind a pigment crucial to light absorption in certain algae, by using the revolutionary Crispr-Cas9 DNA-cutting tool.
Their findings might help in better understanding photosynthesis and potentially inducing the vital oxygenation process in diverse environments and organisms.
Chlorophyll — the pigment that acts as the catalyst for this process — can occur in five distinct forms in terrestrial plants and aquatic algae. The different pigments have their own light absorption spectrums. Chlorophyll C, for instance, can more efficiently absorb the blue-green light of marine environments, and is used by algae like diatoms to carry out photosynthesis.
To solve this puzzle, life scientists at Westlake University in eastern China turned to Crispr — a gene-editing technique that won a US-French duo the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2020. Knockout in genomics refers to the targeted removal of specific genes using Crispr “scissors”, a process that might help scientists understand their functions.
“Further experiments proved that the enzyme encoded by this gene could directly produce chlorophyll C using common precursors in the chlorophyll synthesis pathway. Thus, it was named chlorophyll C synthase or CHLC for short.”
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