Abstract

C4 photosynthesis uses anatomical compartmentalisation to concentrate CO2 around RuBisCO, thereby decreasing wasteful photorespiration and significantly increasing photosynthetic rate compared to the ancestral C3 photosynthetic pathway. In order to integrate C4 photosynthesis into C3 crops to increase yield, a global initiative is underway to engineer C4 into rice. However, all current C4 model species grow in starkly different conditions to rice, so how C4 might operate in paddy conditions is poorly understood. I will describe my plans to use a cell-type specific and developmental gradient transcriptomic approach to investigate how C4 develops and operates in the prolific C4 weed of rice paddies, Echinochloa glabrescens. Further, I will present several pieces of software I have developed to accelerate and improve transcriptome assembly and analysis. Finally I will outline how the applications of this informatics framework will enhance the amount and quality of information that can be gleaned from de-novo transcriptome sequencing experiments, and how this should provide insights into the control and evolution of C4.