Atomic Evidence by David S. Goodsell

Author:David S. Goodsell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

RuBisCO (Fig. 12.5) is the enzyme that captures carbon dioxide and fixes it into a molecule that can be used by the cell to build sugar. Ironically, this enzyme is one of the least efficient enzymes in cells. This is due in part to the similarity between carbon dioxide and oxygen molecules. As reflected in the name of the enzyme, it performs two competing reactions: a carboxylase reaction that fixes carbon dioxide and an oxygenase reaction that creates a toxic side product. The plant cell then needs to clean up all these side products. It must all be worth the effort, however, because RuBisCO has been estimated to be the most plentiful enzyme on the Earth.

Fig. 12.5RuBisCO. RuBisCO is a huge enzyme complex composed of eight copies of two different chains (shown in green and blue). A transition-state analogue of the reaction is shown in the active sites in red (PDB entry 1rlc)

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