BioConcepts

reductive pentose phosphate cyclereduktiver Pentosephosphatzyklus (ger.)

• (Calvin cycle; other names: carbon reduction cycle; C3 cycle/pathway; more appropriately, Calvin‐Bassham cycle) the cyclic set of reactions, occurring in chloroplasts in the majority of higher plants (C3 plants), that results in the fixation of CO² as glucose using the ATP and the NADPH formed in the light reactions of photosynthesis. Briefly, CO² reacts with ribulose 1,5‐bisphosphate under the action of ribulose‐bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco), EC 4.1.1.39, to form two molecules of 3‐phosphoglycerate; these are phosphorylated (by ATP) to 1,3‐bisphosphoglycerate, which in turn is reduced (by NADPH) to glyceraldehyde 3‐phosphate. This is then converted by aldolase, transketolase, and other enzymes to fructose 6‐phosphate and ribulose 5‐phosphate; the latter being phosphorylated (ATP) to ribulose 1,5‐biphosphate, completing the cycle. (Oxford Dict. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 2008)
  category molecular biology

  1956

  [photosynthetic carbon cycle

  Calvin, M. (1956). The photosynthetic carbon cycle. J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 78, 1895-1915; cf. Wilson, A.T. & Calvin, M. (1955). The photosynthetic cycle. CO2 dependent transients. J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 77, 5948-5957; Bassham, J.A. et al. (1956). Intermediates in the photosynthetic cycle. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 21, 376-378.]

  1957

  reductive pentose phosphate cycle

  Racker, E. (1957). The reductive pentose phosphate cycle, I. Phosphoribulokinase and ribulose diphosphate carboxylase. Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 69, 300-310.