BIOENERGETICS
BIOENERGETICS
BIOENERGETICS
HIGH SCHOOL
MODULE 5: BIOENERGETICS
OVERVIEW
In this module will help you learn about the cell: the basic unit of life on earth. Cells are the fundamental units of living
organisms. The cell is the key to biology because it is at this level that life truly springs. As you read this, you will
learn more about the activities of the cell, the structures and the material of life that fills them, how organisms capture
light energy to form sugar molecules, how organisms obtain and utilize energy. later on, you will be surprised what is
living material is made of
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
PRETEST
Directions: Answer the following items. Use additional sheet of paper if necessary.
1. Describe the relationship of breathing and respiration. Are they the same? Defend your answer.
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2. What happens if cellular respiration is not occurring properly inside your body?
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5. How does the cell transform energy within the body of organisms
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LEARNING FOCUS
Unicellular organisms are capable of independent existence and they can perform the essential functions of life.
Anything less than a complete cell does not ensure independent living. Hence, cell is called the fundamental
structural and functional unit of life.
The invention of the microscope helps scientists to study what a living organisms composed of. Even today the study
of cells reveals more detail, and its secrets, which are in fact the secrets of life itself, are revealed with ever
increasing clarity.
Robert Hooke an English scientist was the first to observed cell and in doing so he named them cells. He examined a
slice of cork in a primitive microscope and he saw tiny boxes, which he thoughts looked like a room and led to him
calling them cell.
However what Hooke actually saw was the dead cell walls of plant cells (cork) as it appeared under the microscope.
TYPE OF CELL
Living things vary in terms of the number of cells they have. Some living things are multicellular. Others are
unicellular. Two types of cells compose living things. In the case of bacteria and cyanobacteria have prokaryotic cells.
These cell lack distinct nuclei and only have few organelles that are not membrane-bound. In contrast, eukaryotic
cells have distinct nuclei and contained several membrane-bound organelles. Animals, plants, protists and fungi have
eukaryotic cell. (See the illustration below for the comparison of the two types of cells)
Prokaryotic cell Eukaryotic cell
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Number of Chromosomes One More than One
Cell Membrane Composition No Sterols (Except in Mycoplasmas Sterols Present
Number of Cells Usually Unicellular Usually Multicellular
Sized of Cells Smaller (1-5um) Larger 10-100um)
THE NUCLEUS
Most nuclei contain at least one nucleolus (plural, nucleoli). The nucleoli are where ribosomes are
synthesized, (see fig. above for the illustration)
THE CYTOPLASM
Everything within the cell membrane which is not the nucleus is known as the cytoplasm.
Cytosol is the jelly-like mixture in which the other organelles are suspended.
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Organelles carry out specific functions within the cell. In Eukaryotic cells, most organelles are surrounded by a
membrane, but in prokaryotic cells there are no membrane-bound organelles.
Study Questions:
1. What are the 3 main parts of the cell? Describe each.
2. Why is cell membrane called “permeable membrane"?
3. What does it mean by hydrophilic and hydrophobic?
4. What is the main function of the nucleus?
5. Why do animals could not withstand long exposure under the sun without water while plants can?
Lesson 5.2
PHOTOSYNTHESIS
Life on Earth is solar powered. The chloroplasts in plants and other photosynthetic organisms capture light energy
from the sun and convert it to chemical energy that is stored in sugar and other organic molecules. This conversion
process is called photosynthesis.
Let’s begin by placing photosynthesis in its ecological context. Photosynthesis nourishes almost the entire living
world directly or indirectly. An organism acquires the organic compounds it uses for energy and carbon skeletons by
one of two major modes: autotrophic nutrition or heterotrophic nutrition.
Almost all plants are autotrophs; the only nutrients they require are water and minerals from the soil and carbon
dioxide from the air. Specifically, plants are photoautotrophs, organisms that use light as a source of energy to
synthesize organic substances. Photosynthesis also occurs in algae like kelp, certain other unicellular eukaryotes,
and some prokaryotes.
On the other hands, heterotrophs obtain organic material by the second major mode of nutrition. Unable to make
their own food, they live on compounds produced by other organisms, the autotrophs.
The remarkable ability of an organism to harness light energy and use it to drive the synthesis of organic compounds
emerges from structural organization in the cell: Photosynthetic enzymes and other molecules are grouped together
in a biological membrane, enabling the necessary series of chemical reactions to be carried out efficiently.
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Chloroplasts: The sites of photosynthesis in plants. All green parts of a plant, including green stems and unripen fruit,
have chloroplasts, but the leaves are the major sites of photosynthesis in most plants. There are about half a million
chloroplasts in a chunk of leaf with a top surface area of 1 mm 2. Chloroplasts are found mainly in the cells of the
mesophyll, the tissue in the interior of the leaf. Carbon dioxide enters the leaf, and oxygen exits, by way of
microscopic pores called stomata (singular, stoma; from the Greek, meaning "mouth"). Water absorbed by the roots
is delivered to the leaves in veins. Leaves also use veins to export sugar to roots and other non-photosynthetic parts
of the plant. (singular, stoma; from the Greek, meaning “mouth"). Water absorbed by the roots is delivered to the
leaves in veins. Leaves also use veins to export sugar to roots and other non-photosynthetic parts of the plant.
A chloroplast has an envelope of two membranes surrounding a dense fluid called the stroma. Suspended within the
stroma is a third membrane system, made up of sacs called thylakoids, which segregates the stroma from the
thylakoid space inside these sacs. In some places, thylakoid sacs are stacked in columns called grana (singular,
granum).
Chlorophyll, the green pigment that gives leaves their color, resides in the thylakoid membranes of the chloroplast.
It is the light energy absorbed by chlorophyll that drives the synthesis of organic molecules in the chloroplast. Now
that we have looked at the sites of photosynthesis in plants, we are ready to look more closely at the process of
photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis in Leaf
Leaf Cross Section Mesophyll cell Chloroplast
1. Light reactions (the photo part of photosynthesis) - which capture solar energy and transform it into chemical
energy; and
2. Calvin cycle (the synthesis part) - which uses that chemical energy to make the organic molecules of food.
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The process begins with Photosystem II, were trapped light energy is used to split water, a process known photolysis
H2O 2H++2e- + ½ O2
The electrons are used to generate ATP, by passing them along a series of electron carriers, losing energy as they
do so, before they join Photosystem I, replacing electrons lost there.
Photosystem I also traps light energy, and uses it to excite electrons along a series of carrier molecules. Combined
with the H+ ions formed in Photosystem I, they react with NADP to produce reduced NADP (also known as
NADPH2):
NADP + 2H+ + 2e- —> reduced NADP
The end-products of the light reaction are thus ATP and reduced NADP, (also called NADPH) which move into the
stroma of the chloroplast ready to act as the raw materials for the light-independent reactions (see figure above)
Notice that the light reactions produce no sugar; that happens in the second stage of photosynthesis, the Calvin
cycle.
Calvin cycle is divided into three phases: carbon fixation, reduction, and regeneration of the CO2 acceptor.
Phase 1: Carbon fixation. The Calvin cycle incorporates each CO2 molecule, one at a time, by attaching it to a five-
carbon sugar named ribulose bisphosphate(RuBP). The enzyme that catalyzes this first step is RuBP carboxylase-
oxygenase, or (rubisco) - the most abundant protein in chloroplasts and is also thought to be the most abundant
protein on Earth. The product of the reaction is a six-carbon intermediate that is short lived because it is so
energetically unstable that it immediately splits in half, forming two molecules of 3-phosphoglycerate (for each CO2
fixed).
Phase 2; Reduction. Each molecule of 3-phosphoglycerate receives an additional phosphate group from ATP,
becoming 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate. Next, a pair of electrons donated from NADPH reduces 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate,
which also loses a phosphate group in the process, becoming glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (G3P). Specifically, the
electrons from NADPH reduce a carboxyl group on 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate to the aldehyde group of G3P, which
stores more potential energy. G3P is a sugar—the same three-carbon sugar formed in glycolysis by the splitting of
glucose. Notice in fig. below that for every three molecules of CO2 that enter the cycle, there are six molecules of
G3P formed. But only one molecule of this three-carbon sugar can be counted as a net gain of carbohydrate because
the rest are required to complete the cycle. The cycle began with 15 carbons’ worth of carbohydrate in the form of
three molecules of the five- carbon sugar RuBP. Now there are 18 carbons' worth of carbohydrate in the form of six
molecules of G3P. One molecule exits the cycle to be used by the plant cell, but the other five molecules must be
recycled to regenerate the three molecules of RuBP.
Phase 3: Regeneration of the C02 acceptor (RuBP). In a complex series of reactions, the carbon skeletons of five
molecules of G3P are rearranged by the last steps of the Calvin cycle into three molecules of RuBP, to accomplish
this, the cycle spends three more molecules of ATP. The RuBP is now prepared to receive CO 2 again, and the cycle
continues.
For the net synthesis of one G3P molecule, the Calvin cycle consumes a total of nine molecules of ATP and six
molecules of NADPH. The light reactions regenerate the ATP and NADPH. The G3P spun off from the Calvin cycle
becomes the starting material for metabolic pathways that synthesize other organic compounds, including glucose
(formed by combining two molecules of G3P), the disaccharide sucrose, and other carbohydrates. Neither the light
reactions nor the Calvin cycle alone can make sugar from CO2.
Study Questions:
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Lesson 5.3:
CELLULAR RESPIRATION
Cellular processes are made possible by means of energy. Where does this energy come from?
Whereas only photosynthetic cells can make sugar using photosynthesis. All cells need to be able to break down
sugars they take in from their environment and turn it into energy to be used in cellular work. You have learned that
ATP is the short term energy currency of the cell that is generated by the mitochondria. The conversion of long- term
energy storage such as glucose into ATP is called respiration.
During cellular respiration, sugar is broken down to C02 and H20, and in the process, ATP is made that can then be
used for cellular work.
C6H1206 + 6O2 > 6CO2 + 6H2O + -38 ATP
Anaerobic Respiration
Have you experienced muscle cramp? How does it happen? In aerobic respiration, glucose is converted to ATP in a
presence of oxygen. If you are climbing a very steep hill. You start breathing harder to get oxygen. After a while, your
breathing rate and your heart rate reach their maximum. Yet even this maximum isn't delivering enough oxygen to
your system. At that point, you switch over to anaerobic respiration.
Anaerobic means without oxygen. In humans, what you'll do is take glucose, and, in many steps, break it down to two
molecules of a three carbon molecule called lactic acid. Lactic acid causes the muscle cramps.
Study Questions:
1. What is the end product of glycolysis?
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