Q.Give a detailed account of Calvin cycle with illustration.
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →The Calvin cycle is the stroma-based, light-independent phase of photosynthesis that fixes CO2 into sugar in three steps - carboxylation, reduction and regeneration - consuming the ATP and NADPH made in the light reaction; six turns yield one glucose using 18 ATP and 12 NADPH.
The Calvin cycle (also called the C3 cycle, because the first stable product is a 3-carbon acid) was worked out by Melvin Calvin. It takes place in the stroma of the chloroplast and does not itself need light, but it depends on the ATP and NADPH produced by the light reactions - so it is called the light-independent or 'dark' reaction.
Phase 1 - Carboxylation. The primary CO2 acceptor is a 5-carbon sugar, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP). CO2 combines with RuBP in the presence of the enzyme RuBisCO (ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase) to form an unstable 6-carbon compound that immediately splits into two molecules of 3-phosphoglyceric acid (3-PGA), a 3-carbon compound. This is the actual fixation of CO2.
Phase 2 - Reduction. Each 3-PGA is phosphorylated by ATP (forming 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate) and then reduced by NADPH to form glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate (G3P, also called PGAL). For every CO2 fixed, 2 ATP (for phosphorylation) and 2 NADPH (for reduction) are used. This is the step that actually builds the sugar carbon skeleton.
Phase 3 - Regeneration. The CO2 acceptor RuBP must be continuously regenerated for the cycle to run. Out of six G3P molecules produced (from three CO2 fixed), one leaves the cycle to make sugar, and the remaining five are rearranged and phosphorylated using ATP to regenerate three molecules of RuBP.
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