Light conversion through Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is the way that a plant cell can convert light energy to make chemical energy to feed the cells in the rest of the plant. Light is essentially turned into food for the plant by chloroplasts. Scientists have guessed that it came to be due to the endosymbiont theory, where bacteria cells ate the organelle, chloroplast. The prokaryotic cell decided that when consuming the chloroplast that it loved it so much that it wanted to keep it around forever for energy. Because of this eating, it is said that it wrapped it in another membrane to make it it's own. The bacteria held onto the organelle and made it it's own through evolution to become a eukaryotic cell. This is also how they try to explain that the organelle has two membranes.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chloroplast_II.svg (Links to an external site.)
Chloroplasts plan a very important rule in photosynthesis, which is mainly occurring on the leaves on plants. This location where they are mainly found in the mesophyll, which is the interior tissue of the leaf. Carbon dioxide that we breathe out enters the leaf and exits oxygen through stomata.
In this organelle, the thylakoids are suspended in the stroma, which is like the jelly fluid in the chloroplast. The thylakoids hold the green pigment of the chlorophyll in them. All of which are important parts of photosynthesis along with water being absorbed in the plant roots.
The equation of photosynthesis is :
6 CO2 + 12 H20 + Light energy → C8H12O6 + 6 O2 + 6 H20
When looking at this equation we are viewing it as a carbohydrate and not a sugar molecule. What the chloroplast will do is separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. All of this was discovered Van Niel. He found that all organisms that perform photosynthesis require a hydrogen source, but where they received that source was different. Therefore, meaning that they all are released oxygen gas into the air.
Photosynthesis also causes CO2 to become reduced in and H20 to be oxidized which shows that it a redox reaction. It still releases sugar and the electrons lose potential energy which is then used by the mitochondria to synthesize ATP.
Photosynthesis has two stages:
The first stage is light reactions and the second is the Calvin cycle. They convert light energy into chemical energy that the cell can use. Light that is munched on by the chlorophyll directs that transfer of power through electrons and protons to give oxygen gas to give us humans the air to breathe. The electrons are stored in NADP+ electron carrier, which is then reduced to NADPH by adding a pair of hydrogen ions onto it. The light food/ electrons also generate ATP by a process call photophosphorylation, which means that light creates energy (APT) and NADPH.
The Calvin cycle used the CO2 and the use of the carbon is called carbon fixation. The cycle turns the carbon reduced into carbohydrates. This then, in turn, makes NADPH to power the reactions for light energy.
Reflection
With photosynthesis, I was surprised to how it reminded me of the exchange that happens during cellular respiration. It exchanges and creates energy in our bodies but just through different elements and compounds. Photosynthesis uses the chloroplast to help the creation of APT and the mitochondria that can be found in a human cell creates ATP energy. This if useful information to know how our bodies create energy in the health care world. BY understanding how we make energy, we can better understand the diseases that affect the human body.