MICHAEL D. answered • 11/06/19
PhD in Biology with 10+ years research, teaching, tutoring experience
Hello Delanie,
Photosynthesis
Where does this process occur? In chloroplast --> thylakoid lumen as well as the stroma.
Is glucose used or produced? Produced (technically one molecule of G3P is formed by 3 turns of the calvin cycle, which can be used to make glucose, but from the looks of it your teacher is looking for high level answers).
What is oxygen’s role? Byproduct of water splitting at Photosystem II, no direct role other than aerobic organisms like ourselves depend on it—without it we would be dead. Some of the O2 likely gets consumed by mitochondria in plant cells during electron transport, but I don’t have the data in front of me—it’s a safe bet though.
What is carbon dioxides role? The process of photosynthesis uses the energy of light to convert CO2 and H2O to organic molecules, with O2 as a byproduct. CO2 is integrated as the building blocks of organic molecules.
What is water’s role? See comment above.
More specifically, H2O is split apart forming 2 electrons, 2 protons, and an oxygen (this splitting apart is done by an enzyme at PSII). Separately and simultaneously, light excites electrons in the P680 reaction center which are captured by a primary acceptor. When excited electrons leave the P680 reaction center in an excited state, it creates a void forming P680+. Electrons stripped from H2O replace this void one by one to continue driving electron transport.
What is glucose’s role? Can be fed into oxidative phosphorylation for glycolysis citric acid cycle/TCA cycle, formation of ATP, etc. Plants have mitochondria too.
Cellular respiration
Where does this process occur? Mitochondrial matrix and cytosol.
Is glucose used or produced? It is used/ consumed.
What is oxygen’s role? It is the terminal electron acceptor in the case of aerobic respiration.
What is carbon dioxides role? Byproduct of substrate level phosphorylation (specifically citric acid cycle/ TCA cycle); released into atmosphere and can be taken up by plants.
What is water’s role? Water is required for many enzymatic reactions taking place during cellular respiration, i.e. glycolysis, citric acid cycle. It is also the product of O2 reduction at complex IV during electron transport.
What is glucose’s role? It the substrate in the substrate level phosphorylation of glycolysis. It is the main reactant that sets off the chain of events for cellular respiration. Glucose+lysis=glycolysis (historical note: glucose used to be called glycose and while we’ve update the name for glucose, glycolysis stuck).
Hope this helps!
