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Updated: Dec 9, 2025

Optical Control of Living Cells Electrical Activity by Conjugated Polymers
Published on: January 28, 2016
Artificial regulation of state transition for augmenting plant photosynthesis using synthetic light-harvesting
Xin Zhou1,2, Yue Zeng1,2, Yongyan Tang3
1Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Artificial regulation of state transition between photosystem I (PSI) and PSII will be a smart and promising way to improve efficiency of natural photosynthesis. In this work, we found that a synthetic light-harvesting polymer [poly(boron-dipyrromethene-co-fluorene) (PBF)] with green light absorption and far-red emission could improve PSI activity of algae Chlorella pyrenoidosa, followed by further upgrading PSII activity to augment natural photosynthesis. For light-dependent reactions, PBF accelerated photosynthetic electron transfer, and the productions of oxygen, ATP and NADPH were increased by 120, 97, and 76%, respectively. For light-independent reactions, the RuBisCO activity was enhanced by 1.5-fold, while the expression levels of rbcL encoding RuBisCO and prk encoding phosphoribulokinase were up-regulated by 2.6 and 1.5-fold, respectively. Furthermore, PBF could be absorbed by the Arabidopsis thaliana to speed up cell mitosis and enhance photosynthesis. By improving the efficiency of natural photosynthesis, synthetic light-harvesting polymer materials show promising potential applications for biofuel production.
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