Dr Patricia Lopez
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Email
pelope@essex.ac.uk -
Telephone
+44 (0) 1206 873726
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Location
3SW.5.36, Colchester Campus
Research and professional activities
Current research
Systems analysis has identified points of limitation in the overall photosynthetic process. Some of these points are speculated to have resulted from rapid changes in environmental conditions like rising atmospheric CO2 and others to be evolutionary legacies. Currently my main focus is in this project is to aim to overcome these limitations by up-regulating the expression of specific protein and down-regulating the expression of others. To this end we are using Golden Gate technology to build multigene constructs that once stably transformed into the plant should alter the expression levels of our target genes generating phenotypes of increased photosynthesis and growth. Most of the work is currently based on tobacco, nevertheless; we are hoping to quickly move into species of agronomic interest like rice, cassava and soy bean.
Additionally, I have some lines of work looking at the importance of CP12 in higher plants and cyanobacteria.
Publications
Publications (3)
Lemonnier, P., Wall, S., Gherli, H., Moreno-Garcia, B., Afamefule, C., Lawson, T., Raines, CA. and Lopez-Calcagno, PE., (2024). Simultaneous Overexpression of Three Enzymes of Chloroplast Metabolism Fails to Improve CO2Assimilation or Biomass.
Heyno, E., Ermakova, M., Lopez-Calcagno, PE., Woodford, R., Brown, KL., Matthews, JSA., Osmond, B., Raines, CA. and Caemmerer, SV., (2022). Rieske FeS overexpression in tobacco provides increased abundance and activity of Cytochromeb6f
Ermakova, M., Lopez-Calcagno, PE., Raines, CA., Furbank, RT. and von Caemmerer, S., (2019). Overexpression of the Rieske FeS protein of the Cytochromeb6fcomplex increases C4photosynthesis
Journal articles (14)
Ermakova, M., Lopez-Calcagno, PE., Furbank, RT., Raines, CA. and von Caemmerer, S., (2023). Increased sedoheptulose-1,7-bisphosphatase content inSetaria viridisdoes not affect C4 photosynthesis. Plant Physiology. 191 (2), 885-893
Simkin, AJ., Alqurashi, M., Lopez-Calcagno, PE., Headland, LR. and Raines, CA., (2023). Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase subunits A and B are essential to maintain photosynthetic efficiency. Plant Physiology. 192 (4), 2989-3000
Moreno-García, B., López-Calcagno, PE., Raines, CA. and Sweetlove, LJ., (2022). Suppression of metabolite shuttles for export of chloroplast and mitochondrial ATP and NADPH increases the cytosolic NADH:NAD+ ratio in tobacco leaves in the dark. Journal of Plant Physiology. 268, 153578-153578
Heyno, E., Ermakova, M., Lopez-Calcagno, PE., Woodford, R., Brown, KL., Matthews, JSA., Osmond, B., Raines, CA. and von Caemmerer, S., (2022). Rieske FeS overexpression in tobacco provides increased abundance and activity of Cytochrome b₆f. Physiologia Plantarum. 174 (6), e13803-
Lopez-Calcagno, PE., Brown, KL., Simkin, AJ., Fisk, SJ., Vialet-Chabrand, S., Lawson, T. and Raines, C., (2020). Stimulating photosynthetic processes increases productivity and water use efficiency in the field. Nature Plants. 6 (8), 1054-1063
Lopez-Calcagno, PE., Fisk, S., Brown, KL., Bull, SE., South, PF. and Raines, CA., (2019). Overexpressing the H-protein of the glycine cleavage system increases biomass yield in glasshouse and field grown transgenic tobacco plants. Plant Biotechnology Journal. 17 (1), 141-151
Simkin, AJ., López-Calcagno, PE. and Raines, CA., (2019). Feeding the world: improving photosynthetic efficiency for sustainable crop production. Journal of Experimental Botany. 70 (4), 1119-1140
Ermakova, M., Lopez-Calcagno, PE., Raines, CA., Furbank, RT. and von Caemmerer, S., (2019). Overexpression of the Rieske FeS protein of the Cytochrome b 6 f complex increases C4 photosynthesis in Setaria viridis.. Communications Biology. 2 (1), 314-
South, PF., Cavanagh, AP., Lopez‐Calcagno, PE., Raines, CA. and Ort, DR., (2018). Optimizing photorespiration for improved crop productivity. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology. 60 (12), 1217-1230
Simkin, AJ., Lopez-Calcagno, PE., Davey, PA., Headland, LR., Lawson, T., Timm, S., Bauwe, H. and Raines, CA., (2017). Simultaneous stimulation of sedoheptulose 1,7‐bisphosphatase, fructose 1,6‐bisphophate aldolase and the photorespiratory glycine decarboxylase‐H protein increases CO2 assimilation, vegetative biomass and seed yield in Arabidopsis. Plant Biotechnology Journal. 15 (7), 805-816
Elena López-Calcagno, P., Omar Abuzaid, A., Lawson, T. and Anne Raines, C., (2017). Arabidopsis CP12 mutants have reduced levels of phosphoribulokinase and impaired function of the Calvin–Benson cycle. Journal of Experimental Botany. 68 (9), 2285-2298
Exposito-Rodriguez, M., Laissue, PP., López-Calcagno, PE., Mullineaux, PM., Raines, CA. and Simkin, AJ., (2017). Development of pGEMINI, a Plant Gateway Destination Vector Allowing the Simultaneous Integration of Two cDNA via a Single LR-Clonase Reaction. Plants. 6 (4), 55-55
López-Calcagno, PE., Howard, TP. and Raines, CA., (2014). The CP12 protein family: a thioredoxin-mediated metabolic switch?. Frontiers in Plant Science. 5 (JAN), 9-
López-Calcagno, PE., Moreno, J., Cedeño, L., Labrador, L., Concepción, JL. and Avilán, L., (2009). Cloning, expression and biochemical characterization of mitochondrial and cytosolic malate dehydrogenase from Phytophthora infestans. Mycological Research. 113 (6-7), 771-781
Reports and Papers (1)
López-Calcagno, PE., Brown, KL., Simkin, AJ., Fisk, SJ., Lawson, T. and Raines, CA., (2020). Simultaneous stimulation of RuBP regeneration and electron transport increases productivity and water use efficiency under field conditions
