With modifications, the basic assay could also be used as an inexpensive method for measuring the activation state of Rubisco. Unlike other photometric assays (Sharkey et al. 1991; Sulpice et al. 2007), the continuous assay described here could be used to measure the activity of RCA in the presence of variable ratios of ADP:ATP. This feature is an important consideration since the ratio of ADP:ATP is a major factor regulating the activity of RCA in plants (Robinson and Portis 1989a) and influencing the rate of photosynthetic induction (Carmo-Silva and Salvucci 2013). This fact was demonstrated in studies using Arabidopsis plants that express forms of RCA that differ in their sensitivity to ADP.

These plants exhibit marked differences in the response of Rubisco selleck activation to irradiance (Zhang et al. 2002; Carmo-Silva and Salvucci 2013). As a result, plants whose RCA was less sensitive to inhibition by ADP exhibited faster rates of photosynthetic induction during transitions from low to high irradiance because Rubisco was already highly active under low irradiance in these plants (Carmo-Silva and Salvucci 2013, see also Table 1). This finding indicates that manipulating the regulatory properties of RCA might provide a strategy for increasing the rate of photosynthesis in variable SU5402 cost light environments. The assay described

here should provide a useful tool for evaluating the interaction between Rubisco and RCA, including variants of both proteins. To demonstrate this application, the activation of a His-tagged Rubisco by RCA was measured to test the hypothesis that RCA alters the conformation of Rubisco via a pore threading mechanism involving movement of the C-terminus of the Rubisco large subunit by RCA (Mueller-Cajar et al. 2011; Stotz et al. 2011). While the data did not conclusively support or reject the hypothesis, they show that the interaction of RCA with Rubisco is unaffected by extending the C-terminus of the large subunit of Rubisco by six histidine residues. Measuring Rubisco activity and Rubisco activation state

Due to the investment associated with producing the dPGM-ST used in the RCA assay, Astemizole it was desirable to use the central portion of the assay, the conversion of 3-PGA to PEP, to measure Rubisco activation in leaf extracts. These assays demonstrated the influence of both irradiance and temperature on the activation state of Rubisco in leaves, verifying that the amount of active Rubisco changes in response to these environmental factors. The high sensitivity of 14C-based assays for Rubisco allow for very short reaction times, i.e. 30–60 s (Lorimer et al. 1977). Short reaction times minimize the problem with “fall-over”; the slow, progressive decrease in catalytic activity caused by either the presence of inhibitory compounds in the RuBP preparation (Kane et al.