Preventing Photorespirations Damaging Effects To Sports Turf

Download or read book Preventing Photorespiration"s Damaging Effects To Sports Turf written by Jeff Haag and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2019-02-06 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: RuBP oxygenase-carboxylase (rubisco), a key enzyme in photosynthesis, is the molecular equivalent of a good friend with a bad habit. In the process of carbon fixation, rubisco incorporates carbon dioxide (\text{CO}_2CO2) into an organic molecule during the first stage of the Calvin cycle. Rubisco is so important to plants that it makes up 30\%%30%% or more of the soluble protein in a typical plant leaf^11. But rubisco also has a major flaw: instead of always using \text{CO}_2CO2 as a substrate, it sometimes picks up \text O_2O2 instead. This side reaction initiates a pathway called photorespiration, which, rather than fixing carbon, actually leads to the loss of already-fixed carbon as \text{CO}_2CO2. Photorespiration wastes energy and decreases sugar synthesis, so when rubisco initiates this pathway, it's committing a serious molecular faux pas.