A chloroplast is a type of organelle known as a plastid that conducts photosynthesis mostly in plant and algal cells. Chloroplasts have a high concentration of chlorophyll pigments which capture the energy from sunlight and convert it to chemical energy and release oxygen. The chemical energy created is then used to make sugar and other organic molecules from carbon dioxide in a process called the Calvin cycle. Chloroplasts carry out a number of other functions, including fatty acid synthesis, amino acid synthesis, and the immune response in plants. The number of chloroplasts per cell varies from one, in some unicellular algae, up to 100 in plants like Arabidopsis and wheat.
Chlorophyll is any of several related green pigments found in cyanobacteria and in the chloroplasts of algae and plants. Its name is derived from the Greek words χλωρός and φύλλον. Chlorophyll allows plants to absorb energy from light.
Photosynthesis is a system of biological processes by which photosynthetic organisms, such as most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, convert light energy, typically from sunlight, into the chemical energy necessary to fuel their metabolism. Photosynthesis usually refers to oxygenic photosynthesis, a process that produces oxygen. Photosynthetic organisms store the chemical energy so produced within intracellular organic compounds like sugars, glycogen, cellulose and starches. To use this stored chemical energy, an organism's cells metabolize the organic compounds through cellular respiration. Photosynthesis plays a critical role in producing and maintaining the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere, and it supplies most of the biological energy necessary for complex life on Earth.
Thylakoids are membrane-bound compartments inside chloroplasts and cyanobacteria. They are the site of the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis. Thylakoids consist of a thylakoid membrane surrounding a thylakoid lumen. Chloroplast thylakoids frequently form stacks of disks referred to as grana. Grana are connected by intergranal or stromal thylakoids, which join granum stacks together as a single functional compartment.
Magnesium is an essential element in biological systems. Magnesium occurs typically as the Mg2+ ion. It is an essential mineral nutrient (i.e., element) for life and is present in every cell type in every organism. For example, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the main source of energy in cells, must bind to a magnesium ion in order to be biologically active. What is called ATP is often actually Mg-ATP. As such, magnesium plays a role in the stability of all polyphosphate compounds in the cells, including those associated with the synthesis of DNA and RNA.
Photobiology is the scientific study of the beneficial and harmful interactions of light in living organisms. The field includes the study of photophysics, photochemistry, photosynthesis, photomorphogenesis, visual processing, circadian rhythms, photomovement, bioluminescence, and ultraviolet radiation effects.
Plastoquinone (PQ) is a terpenoid-quinone (meroterpenoid) molecule involved in the electron transport chain in the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis. The most common form of plastoquinone, known as PQ-A or PQ-9, is a 2,3-dimethyl-1,4-benzoquinone molecule with a side chain of nine isoprenyl units. There are other forms of plastoquinone, such as ones with shorter side chains like PQ-3 as well as analogs such as PQ-B, PQ-C, and PQ-D, which differ in their side chains. The benzoquinone and isoprenyl units are both nonpolar, anchoring the molecule within the inner section of a lipid bilayer, where the hydrophobic tails are usually found.
Photosystems are functional and structural units of protein complexes involved in photosynthesis. Together they carry out the primary photochemistry of photosynthesis: the absorption of light and the transfer of energy and electrons. Photosystems are found in the thylakoid membranes of plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. These membranes are located inside the chloroplasts of plants and algae, and in the cytoplasmic membrane of photosynthetic bacteria. There are two kinds of photosystems: PSI and PSII.
Chlorophyll a is a specific form of chlorophyll used in oxygenic photosynthesis. It absorbs most energy from wavelengths of violet-blue and orange-red light, and it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum. Chlorophyll does not reflect light but chlorophyll-containing tissues appear green because green light is diffusively reflected by structures like cell walls. This photosynthetic pigment is essential for photosynthesis in eukaryotes, cyanobacteria and prochlorophytes because of its role as primary electron donor in the electron transport chain. Chlorophyll a also transfers resonance energy in the antenna complex, ending in the reaction center where specific chlorophylls P680 and P700 are located.
In the process of photosynthesis, the phosphorylation of ADP to form ATP using the energy of sunlight is called photophosphorylation. Cyclic photophosphorylation occurs in both aerobic and anaerobic conditions, driven by the main primary source of energy available to living organisms, which is sunlight. All organisms produce a phosphate compound, ATP, which is the universal energy currency of life. In photophosphorylation, light energy is used to pump protons across a biological membrane, mediated by flow of electrons through an electron transport chain. This stores energy in a proton gradient. As the protons flow back through an enzyme called ATP synthase, ATP is generated from ADP and inorganic phosphate. ATP is essential in the Calvin cycle to assist in the synthesis of carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and NADPH.
Phycobilisomes are light-harvesting antennae that transmit the energy of harvested photons to photosystem II and photosystem I in cyanobacteria and in the chloroplasts of red algae and glaucophytes. They were lost during the evolution of the chloroplasts of green algae and plants.
The light-harvesting complex is an array of protein and chlorophyll molecules embedded in the thylakoid membrane of plants and cyanobacteria, which transfer light energy to one chlorophyll a molecule at the reaction center of a photosystem.
A photosynthetic reaction center is a complex of several proteins, biological pigments, and other co-factors that together execute the primary energy conversion reactions of photosynthesis. Molecular excitations, either originating directly from sunlight or transferred as excitation energy via light-harvesting antenna systems, give rise to electron transfer reactions along the path of a series of protein-bound co-factors. These co-factors are light-absorbing molecules (also named chromophores or pigments) such as chlorophyll and pheophytin, as well as quinones. The energy of the photon is used to excite an electron of a pigment. The free energy created is then used, via a chain of nearby electron acceptors, for a transfer of hydrogen atoms (as protons and electrons) from H2O or hydrogen sulfide towards carbon dioxide, eventually producing glucose. These electron transfer steps ultimately result in the conversion of the energy of photons to chemical energy.
Photoinhibition is light-induced reduction in the photosynthetic capacity of a plant, alga, or cyanobacterium. Photosystem II (PSII) is more sensitive to light than the rest of the photosynthetic machinery, and most researchers define the term as light-induced damage to PSII. In living organisms, photoinhibited PSII centres are continuously repaired via degradation and synthesis of the D1 protein of the photosynthetic reaction center of PSII. Photoinhibition is also used in a wider sense, as dynamic photoinhibition, to describe all reactions that decrease the efficiency of photosynthesis when plants are exposed to light.
In enzymology, a ferredoxin-NADP+ reductase (EC 1.18.1.2) abbreviated FNR, is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to cell biology:
Non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) is a mechanism employed by plants and algae to protect themselves from the adverse effects of high light intensity. It involves the quenching of singlet excited state chlorophylls (Chl) via enhanced internal conversion to the ground state, thus harmlessly dissipating excess excitation energy as heat through molecular vibrations. NPQ occurs in almost all photosynthetic eukaryotes, and helps to regulate and protect photosynthesis in environments where light energy absorption exceeds the capacity for light utilization in photosynthesis.
Protochlorophyllide, or monovinyl protochlorophyllide, is an intermediate in the biosynthesis of chlorophyll a. It lacks the phytol side-chain of chlorophyll and the reduced pyrrole in ring D. Protochlorophyllide is highly fluorescent; mutants that accumulate it glow red if irradiated with blue light. In angiosperms, the later steps which convert protochlorophyllide to chlorophyll are light-dependent, and such plants are pale (chlorotic) if grown in the darkness. Gymnosperms, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria have another, light-independent enzyme and grow green in the darkness as well.
Antheraxanthin is a bright yellow accessory pigment found in many organisms that perform photosynthesis. It is a xanthophyll cycle pigment, an oil-soluble alcohol within the xanthophyll subgroup of carotenoids. Antheraxanthin is both a component in and product of the cellular photoprotection mechanisms in photosynthetic green algae, red algae, euglenoids, and plants.
Philip Malcolm Lintilhac is an American botanist and cell biologist, known for his pioneering work in the study of plant developmental biomechanics and for his novel experimental and theoretical approaches to the study of plant tissue architecture, for which he was awarded the Botanical Society of America’s Centennial award in 2006. He is currently a research associate professor at the University of Vermont.
