How Does Your Garden Grow?

by Ryan Keeney

                1. Photosynthesis is the process in which a plant uses sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen, which is released, and carbohydrates such as glucose which are used to store chemical energy. Cellular respiration then uses this stored energy to form ATP, and also releases waste products. This ATP is then used to drive several important chemical reactions, including those used to facilitate cell division. Mitosis is what actually creates new biomass to add to the structure of the plant.

                2. When a signal is sent to the nucleus to produce PEPC and RuBisCo, the cell would first transcribe the gene into mRNA with an RNA polymerase. The RNA polymerase bonds to the DNA strand, unravels it, and makes a complementary copy of one of the DNA strands into an RNA strand. The strand of mRNA finds a ribosome, which reads the first codon of the strand and finds the correct amino acid. It then moves on to the next codon and finds the next amino acid, stringing it to the first one. When it reaches the stop codon, the chain breaks off, and the enzyme, in this case PEPC or RuBisCo, breaks off and goes into the cell.