Читать книгу Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis - Robert E. Blankenship - Страница 56

At approximately the same time as Arnon was demonstrating photophosphorylation on one side of the Berkeley campus of the University of California, Melvin Calvin, Andrew Benson, and coworkers were working to understand the details of the carbon assimilation process itself on the other side of the campus (Calvin, 1989; Benson, 2002). They elucidated the chemical reactions that convert CO₂ and assimilatory power into carbohydrates. These reactions have become known as the Calvin–Benson cycle, and Calvin was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1961 in recognition of the brilliant elucidation of this complex set of reactions. He and his coworkers used the newly developed method of radioactive tracers, injecting algae with ¹⁴CO₂ and then following the path of the radioactivity in the products (Creager, 2013). We will discuss the details of the Calvin–Benson cycle and other aspects of carbon metabolism in Chapter 9.