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Concept
Ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate
Summary
Ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP) is an organic substance that is involved in photosynthesis, notably as the principal acceptor in plants. It is a colourless anion, a double phosphate ester of the ketopentose (ketone-containing sugar with five carbon atoms) called ribulose. Salts of RuBP can be isolated, but its crucial biological function happens in solution. RuBP occurs not only in plants but in all domains of life, including Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya.
RuBP was originally discovered by Andrew Benson in 1951 while working in the lab of Melvin Calvin at UC Berkeley. Calvin, who had been away from the lab at the time of discovery and was not listed as a co-author, controversially removed the full molecule name from the title of the initial paper, identifying it solely as "ribulose". At the time, the molecule was known as ribulose diphosphate (RDP or RuDP) but the prefix di- was changed to bis- to emphasize the nonadjacency of the two phosphate groups.
Calvin-Benson Cycle
The enzyme ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase (rubisco) catalyzes the reaction between RuBP and carbon dioxide. The product is the highly unstable six-carbon intermediate known as 3-keto-2-carboxyarabinitol 1,5-bisphosphate, or 2'-carboxy-3-keto-D-arabinitol 1,5-bisphosphate (CKABP). This six-carbon β-ketoacid intermediate hydrates into another six-carbon intermediate in the form of a gem-diol. This intermediate then cleaves into two molecules of 3-phosphoglycerate (3-PGA) which is used in a number of metabolic pathways and is converted into glucose.
In the Calvin-Benson cycle, RuBP is a product of the phosphorylation of ribulose-5-phosphate (produced by glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate) by ATP.
RuBP acts as an enzyme inhibitor for the enzyme rubisco, which regulates the net activity of carbon fixation. When RuBP is bound to an active site of rubisco, the ability to activate via carbamylation with and is blocked. The functionality of rubisco activase involves removing RuBP and other inhibitory bonded molecules to re-enable carbamylation on the active site.
Official source
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