Shunsuke Adachi （Assistant Professor, The Global innovation Research Organization, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology）
Dramatic improvement of rice leaf photosynthesis by enhancing the CO2 diffusion inside leaves
C4 plants, such as maize, which have unique photosynthetic system, usually show higher photosynthetic capacity than C3 plants including rice. It will be, however, possible to improve photosynthetic capacity to the level of C4 plants without using genetic engineering by means of actively utilizing the natural genetic resources in rice, which has been one of the longstanding important subjects in this field. This research project aims to identify the genetic and physiological factors that enable the dramatic improvement of photosynthesis with special focus on the CO2 diffusion inside leaves.
