ReviewThe Plant cell2011
C4 cycles: past, present, and future research on C4 photosynthesis.
Review in The Plant cell, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 103 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
103 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Phenotypic landscape inference reveals multiple evolutionary paths to C4 photosynthesis.eLife · 2013Pooled it
- Advancing our understanding of photosynthesis: discoveries and insights from aquatic plants.Synthetic and systems biotechnology · 2027Review
- Faster relaxation of nonphotochemical quenching in C4 than in C3 species.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Metabolic modeling predicts synergistic growth benefits between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and theoretical N2-fixing rhizobia symbiosis in maize.Plant physiology · 2026Article
- Advancements in Sustainable Livestock Feed: Harnessing Drought-Tolerant Crops.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Review
- Chloroplast genome sequencing of Poa pratensis and comparative chloroplast genomics analysis with other 29 grass species.Functional & integrative genomics · 2026Article
- Synthetic Biology of Plants and Microbes for Agriculture, Environment, and Future Applications.Chemical reviews · 2026Review
- Not just Rubisco: integrated strategies to overcome the biochemical limitations of CFrontiers in plant science · 2026Review
- Assembly of Arundinella anomala genome to facilitate single-cell resolved functional and developmental characterization of CNature plants · 2026Article
- Adaptability of Foxtail Millet Varieties Based on Photosynthetic Performance and Agronomic Traits.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Genome editing in maize and sorghum: A comprehensive review of CRISPR/Cas9 and emerging technologies.The plant genome · 2025Review
- Lost in translation: What we have learned from attributes that do not translate from Arabidopsis to other plants.The Plant cell · 2025Review
- In defense of funding foundational plant science.The Plant cell · 2025Article
- Resolving the contrasting leaf hydraulic adaptation of CThe New phytologist · 2025Article
- Spectral response of gross primary production to in situ canopy light absorption coefficient of chlorophyll.Photosynthesis research · 2025Article
- Physiological and structural traits contribute to thermotolerance in wild Australian cotton species.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- Article
- Identification of the cassavaFrontiers in plant science · 2025Article
- Leaf transcriptomes from C3, C3-C4 intermediate, and C4Neurachne species give insights into C4 photosynthesis evolution.Plant physiology · 2024Article
- Article
43 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In the late 1960s, a vibrant new research field was ignited by the discovery that instead of fixing CO(2) into a C(3) compound, some plants initially fix CO(2) into a four-carbon (C(4)) compound. The term C(4) photosynthesis was born. In the 20 years that followed, physiologists, biochemists, and molecular and developmental biologists grappled to understand how the C(4) photosynthetic pathway was partitioned between two morphologically distinct cell types in the leaf. By the early 1990s, much was known about C(4) biochemistry, the types of leaf anatomy that facilitated the pathway, and the patterns of gene expression that underpinned the biochemistry. However, virtually nothing was known about how the pathway was regulated. It should have been an exciting time, but many of the original researchers were approaching retirement, C(4) plants were proving recalcitrant to genetic manipulation, and whole-genome sequences were not even a dream. In combination, these factors led to reduced funding and the failure to attract young people into the field; the endgame seemed to be underway. But over the last 5 years, there has been a resurgence of interest and funding, not least because of ambitious multinational projects that aim to increase crop yields by introducing C(4) traits into C(3) plants. Combined with new technologies, this renewed interest has resulted in the development of more sophisticated approaches toward understanding how the C(4) pathway evolved, how it is regulated, and how it might be manipulated. The extent of this resurgence is manifest by the publication in 2011 of more than 650 pages of reviews on different aspects of C(4). Here, I provide an overview of our current understanding, the questions that are being addressed, and the issues that lie ahead.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.