Researchers report an estimate for the global mass of the carbon dioxide-fixing enzyme Rubisco, thought to be the most abundant protein on Earth, finding the mass to be an order of magnitude larger than previous estimates; based on the estimated global mass, the authors estimated the average catalytic rate of Rubisco in land plants to be approximately 100-fold slower than the maximum rate measured in vitro, whereas in marine algae the average rate was close to the maximum rate.
Article #18-16654: "The global mass and average rate of rubisco," by Yinon M. Bar-On and Ron Milo.
MEDIA CONTACT: Ron Milo, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, ISRAEL; tel: +972-505714697; e-mail: ron.milo@weizmann.ac.il
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