HANGZHOU — A group of Chinese scientists made a breakthrough as they rendered mammalian cells a unique skill normally the preserve of green plants — that of turning water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and food via sunlight — revitalizing the impaired animal cells in the process.

The researchers from Zhejiang University, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, developed an independent and controllable photosynthetic system derived from a device in young spinach leaves, according to the study published on Thursday in the journal Nature.

Then, they integrated this plant system into arthritic mice's degenerated chondrocytes, which are cells found in the cartilage, and demonstrated that the modified cells, following exposure to light, help improve the metabolic process in which complex molecules are synthesized from simpler ones with the storage of energy.

The researchers encapsulated the light-powered structure in a nanosized animal cell membrane coating as a camouflage to prevent the rodent's immune system from rejecting it as a foreign body.

In arthritis, the energy-generating devices within cells tend to discharge, but the photosynthesis of plants is capable of producing the needed energy-carrying molecules.

The plant-derived system is shown to correct energy imbalance, restore cellular metabolism and protect against the chronic inflammation of the joints, says the study.

Using the natural photosynthetic system as a therapeutic strategy for degenerative diseases, is "an exciting achievement that opens up possibilities of metabolism engineering", says the paper's peer reviewer Francisco Cejudo from the University of Seville in Spain.