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Editorial |
Photosynthetic Research in Plant Science
1Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
2Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
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Photosynthesis is a highly regulated, multistep process. It encompasses the harvest of solar energy, transfer of excitation energy, energy conversion, electron transfer from water to NADP+, ATP generation and a series of enzymatic reactions that assimilate carbon dioxide and synthesize carbohydrate.
Photosynthesis has a unique place in the history of plant science, as its central concepts were established by the middle of the last century, and the detailed mechanisms have since been elucidated. For example, measurements of photosynthetic efficiency (quantum yield) at different wavelengths of light (Emerson and Lews 1943
) led to the insight that two distinct forms of Chl must be excited in oxygenic photosynthesis. These results suggested the concept of two photochemical systems. The reaction