Lowering photorespiration may not result in increased growth rates for plants. Photorespiration may be necessary for the assimilation of nitrate from soil. Thus, a lowering in photorespiration by genetic engineering or because of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide may not benefit plants as has been proposed. Several physiological processes may be responsible for linking photorespiration and nitrogen assimilation. Photorespiration increases availability of NADH, which is required for the conversion of nitrate to nitrite. Certain nitrite transporters also transport bicarbonate, and elevated  has been shown to suppress nitrite transport into chloroplasts. However, in an agricultural setting, replacing the native photorespiration pathway with an engineered synthetic pathway to metabolize glycolate in the chloroplast resulted in a 40 percent increase in crop growth.
Although photorespiration is much lower in C species, it is still an essential pathwaymutants without functioning 2-phosphoglycolate metabolism cannot grow in normal conditions. One mutant was shown to rapidly accumulate glycolate.
Although the functions of photorespiration remain controversial, it is widely accepted that this pathway influences a wide range of processes from bioenergetics, photosystem II function, and carbon metabolism to nitrogen assimilation and respiration. The oxygenase reaction of RuBisCO may prevent  depletion near its active sites and contributes to the regulation of CO concentration in the atmosphere The photorespiratory pathway is a major source of hydrogen peroxide () in photosynthetic cells. Through  production and pyrimidine nucleotide interactions, photorespiration makes a key contribution to cellular redox homeostasis. In so doing, it influences multiple signalling pathways, in particular, those that govern plant hormonal responses controlling growth, environmental and defense responses, and programmed cell death.
It has been postulated that photorespiration may function as a "safety valve", preventing the excess of reductive potential coming from an overreduced NADPH-pool from reacting with oxygen and producing free radicals (oxidants), as these can damage the metabolic functions of the cell by subsequent oxidation of membrane lipids, proteins or nucleotides. The mutants deficient in photorespiratory enzymes are characterized by a high redox level in the cell, impaired stomatal regulation, and accumulation of formate.