• Question: Explain the light dependent and light independent parts of photosynthesis

    Asked by 796prmc37 to Alex, Laura, Lesley, Richard, vediacan on 18 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Prince

      Richard Prince answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      Hi,
      Laura is our resident expert on plants, judging by her excellent answer on the chloroplast. I’ll defer to her. It is more than 20 years since I did plant biochemistry (great subject though….. bits come back to me now… C3, C4 metabolism, CAM plants).
      Best wishes
      Richard

    • Photo: Laura Newton

      Laura Newton answered on 22 Jun 2015:

      Hey 796!

      I haven’t done plant biology for a long time and I didn’t like it much when I did! But from what I remember, in the light dependent reactions, chlorophyll absorbs a photon which is passed down an electron transport chain that leads to the production of NADPH, ATP and oxygen. The NADPH and ATP then get fed into the light independent pathway where a lot of enzymes modify CO2 to make sugars that the plant can use as building blocks for other things.

      Best wishes,
      Laura

    • Photo: Vedia Can

      Vedia Can answered on 22 Jun 2015:

      Hi 796prmc37,

      Looks like Laura has answered your question 🙂

      Best Wishes,

      Vedia

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