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Q.What are the three phases of Dark reaction?

Tamil Nadu DgeTamil Nadu HSC First Year (DGE) Board 2024Subjective· 3mImportance★★★★★
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The Calvin cycle (dark reaction) runs through carboxylation, reduction, and regeneration phases, using the ATP and NADPH generated by the light reaction to fix and reduce CO2 into carbohydrate while continually regenerating its own CO2 acceptor.

The dark reaction of photosynthesis (the Calvin cycle, or C3 pathway, so-named because its first stable product is a 3-carbon compound) does not directly need light, but it depends on the ATP and NADPH produced by the light reaction. It proceeds through three distinct phases:

  1. Carboxylation phase: this is the fixation of atmospheric CO2. The CO2 acceptor, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP, a 5-carbon sugar), combines with CO2 in a reaction catalysed by the enzyme RuBisCO (ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase). This produces an unstable 6-carbon intermediate that immediately splits into two molecules of 3-phosphoglyceric acid (3-PGA), a 3-carbon compound. …

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