Experiment to Study the Importance of Rubisco Carboxylase in Plants

Photosynthesis and cell respiration are some of the two most important biological processes that organisms go through. Photosynthesis is the biological process plants undergo to convert light energy into chemical energy. In chloroplasts the chlorophyll act as catalysts for this process. The process uses carbon dioxide (CO2) and Water (H2O) in order to produce glucose (C6H1206) and oxygen (02). Thus, it is read as 6CO2 + 6H2O —> C6H12O6 + 6O2. Photosynthesis is split into two different processes. The first process is light Dependent meaning i uses energy being absorbed to break down and molecules at a rapid photosynthetic rate. The second process is Light Independent meaning it uses ATP and NADH absorbed during when light was present to breakdown glucose instead. Therefore, Healthy plants are green because Chlorophyll absorbs red and blue light, but reflects green light signifying stored light.Some Anaerobic bacteria undergo photosynthesis meaning it can’t grow in oxygen and uses Carbon Dioxide and other substances like hydrogen sulfide to photosynthesis. In general all plants need Carbon Dioxide. (Ensminger, 2014)

Photosynthesis is essential for a plant to survive. In order to perform photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is needed and is the most important component in the creation of matter. There are two other factors that go into photosynthesis, which are solar energy and water. Both are equally important in order to perform photosynthesis, but they don’t create the majority of the matter in a plant. The carbon dioxide is taken from the atmosphere which has a high concentration of carbon. “During the spring when plants start growing again, concentration drops” (Riebeeck p.5). Plants absorb the carbon dioxide and keep it, in order to grow. Once the carbon dioxide is fixated, glucose is produced and used in the process of cellular respiration.

Introduction: Photosynthesis can be defined as a solar powered process that removes atmospheric carbon dioxide and transforms it into oxygen and carbohydrates (Harris-Haller 2014). Photosynthesis can be considered to be the most important biochemical process on Earth because it helps plants to grow its roots, leaves, and fruits, and plants serve as autotrophs which are crucial to the food chain on earth. Several factors determine the process of photosynthesis. Light is one these factors and is the main subject of this experiment. The intensity of light is a property of light that is important for photosynthesis to occur. Brighter light causes more light to touch the surface of the plant which increases the rate of photosynthesis (Speer 1997). This is why there is a tendency of higher rates of photosynthesis in climates with a lot of sunlight than areas that primarily do not get as much sunlight. Light wavelength is also a property of

-Measuring the pH of a solution (such as in the lab we had) could also help determine the rate of photosynthesis. You would need a much more specific pH meter, but generally, if pH goes down, the level of CO2 is higher, meaning more cellular respiration. Higher pH means there’s less CO2, so more photosynthesis.

Rubisco is the most abundant protein on earth that is essential for carbon fixation in plants. For the protein to function at its optimal level, it needs to be isolated from the mixture of proteins and in its purest form. The three isolation techniques carried out in this lab are salting out, ion exchange chromatography, and SDS-PAGE. Rubisco will be purer as each technique is conducted and will be in its purest form after the last isolation technique is carried out.

My lab partners and I performed an experiment that involved placing spinach disks into separate cups of distilled water (dH2O) and 0.2% sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) solution to examine photosynthesis in leaf tissue (Department of EEB, 2015). Discovering that the spinach disks quickly floated to the top of the 0.2% NaHCO3 solution and not in dH2O, we wondered if varied concentrations of carbonation would affect the rate of photosynthesis (PS). We tested this by halving the 0.2% NaHCO3 solution (using equal parts dH2O and 0.2% NaHCO3 solution to make 0.1% NaHCO3 solution). I hypothesize that if the spinach disks are placed in the 0.1% NaHCO3 solution, then they will have a slower PS compared to the disks placed in 0.2% NaHCO3. CO2

The enzyme behind this life-changing innovation is Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, better known as Rubisco. Rubisco is involved in the first major step of carbon fixation, a process by which atmospheric CO2 is converted by plants and other photosynthetic organisms to energy-rich molecules. In chemical terms, rubisco catalyzes the carboxylation of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate (also known as RuBP) (“Ribulose 1,5-Bisphosphate”). This begins three rounds of a cyclical series of reactions in which three CO2 molecules are converted into a compound called glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate, which is converted into various nutrients. RuBP is replenished at the end of each cycle. The used up ATP and NADPH are converted to ADP and NADP+, respectively, which are used for the light-dependent reactions (Cranford).

This lab deals with the transpiration rates in plants, specifically a tomato plant that was used for this experiment. Transpiration is when water leaves a plant through the stomata as water vapor while the stomata is capturing CO2 for photosynthesis. This experiment used three different scenarios: a tomato plant with a light shining on it, a tomato plant with wind blowing on it from a fan, and lastly a tomato plant with nothing acting on it. The hypothesis is that the rate of transpiration will be fastest with light, faster with wind, and slow with the control. This hypothesis was rejected because the rate of transpiration is as follows with the wind having the fastest rate: with light the rate was 7.60 mm/min, with wind 10.20 mm/min, and control 4.33 mm/min. The cause of the wind having a faster transpiration rate than the light may have been due to the surface area of the leaves on the tomato plants. The surface area of the leaves for the wind experiment is 8,124mm2, and for the light is 7,740mm2.By doing this transpiration experiment it helps one to see what happens in plants daily and understand why it happens.

Photosynthesis occurs in the palisade mesophyll of plant leaves. During photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is broken up into 6 carbon for the sugar molecule and 12 oxygen. In this lab, I determined the rate of photosynthesis in spinach

What is photorespiration and why is it a problem in C3 plants? Photorespiration is located in the mesophyll cells and happens when the plant is in hot conditions leading to the stroma to close off preventing water loss (cause plants shrink) and not preventing O2 to diffuse through the cell. Thus creating and uptake in the concentration of O2 leading to the RuBP to bonded to O2 instead of CO2 producing a molecule that is useless to the cell while not

photosynthesis happens in two stages: light reaction and carbon fixation also known as calvin cycle.light reaction TAKES PLACE IN THYLAKOID USE light energy to produces atp and nadph whereas, calvin cycle takes place instroma uses energy derived from light dependent reaction to make GA3P from CO2 ( Bio166 lab execise manual, 2015). the purpose of this experiment was to separate plant

Photosynthesis is the process by which plants use light energy to synthesis carbohydrates (sugar) from carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O), in the presence of chlorophyll. Photosynthesis normally releases oxygen (O2) as a byproduct. This report investigates the effect Sodium Bicarbonate (NaHCO3) on the rate of photosynthesis in Green Penny-wort.

Because chlorophyll-a takes in violet-blue, and orange-red lights to use in photosynthesis, it reflects green, and that is the color we see. This study investigates the relationship between the wavelength of light and the total respiration of the plant Elodea. The purpose is to see the effect of the presence or absence of certain wavelengths can have on the process of photosynthesis. Because Elodea is a plant that reflects green light, it can be assumed that red lights, the complimentary color to green will be absorbed the most contributing to the process of photosynthesis and respiration making the most oxygen.

Plant mitochondria include two terminal oxidases: cytochrome oxidase and the cyanide-insensitive alternative oxidase. Electron partitioning between the two pathways is regulated by the redox equilibrium of the ubiquinone pool and the activation state of the alternative oxidase. The alternative oxidase appears to exist as a dimer, which is active in the reduced, noncovalently linked form, and inactive when in the oxidized, covalently linked form. Reduction of the oxidase in detached tobacco mitochondria occurs upon oxidation of isocitrate or malate and may be mediated by matrix NAD(P)H. The energy of the reduced oxidase is influenced by certain other organic acids, notably pyruvate, which appear to interact directly with the enzyme. Pyruvate alters the interaction between the alternative oxidase and ubiquinol so that the oxidase becomes active at much lower levels of ubiquinol and competes with the cytochrome pathway for electrons. These will be further explored in this piece.

Affects of light intensities on plant photosynthesis measured by the amount of oxygen produced…………………………………………………………………………………..5