Incremental discovery may one day lead to photosynthetic breakthrough

Photosynthesis is one of the most complicated and important processes—responsible for kick-starting Earth’s food chain. While we have modeled its more-than-100 major steps, scientists are still discovering the purpose of proteins that can be engineered to increase yield, as scientists recently proved in Science. Now researchers have uncovered secrets about another protein, CP12—the full understanding of which may provide an additional route to boost yields in the future.