Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate reacts with carbon dioxide to produce 3-keto-2-carboxyarabinitol 1,5-bisphosphate as the first step in the biochemical process of carbon fixation. It needs an enzyme to do this (Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, or RuBisCO) and lots of ATP (adenosine triphosphate, produced by photosynthesis). Here I ask what the nature of the uncatalysed transition state is, and hence the task that might be facing the catalyst in reducing the activation barrier to that of a facile thermal reaction. I present my process in the order it was done‡.
Posts Tagged ‘lower energy conformation’
Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate + carbon dioxide → carbon fixation!
Sunday, April 20th, 2014Updating a worked problem in conformational analysis. Part 2: an answer.
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011The previous post set out a problem in conformational analysis. Here is my take, which includes an NCI (non-covalent interaction) display as discussed in another post.