Heme and Chlorophyll Biosynthetic Pathways
I. Heme and Chlorophyll Biosynthetic Pathways
Heme and chlorophyll (Chl) are porphyrins. Porphyrins (also referred to as tetrapyrroles) are essential for life in the biosphere. Chlorophyll catalyzes the conversion of solar energy to chemical energy via the process of photosynthesis. Organic life in the biosphere is made possible by consumption of the chemical energy generated by photosynthesis. Hemes are the prosthetic groups of cytochromes which are involved in electron transport during oxidative phosphorylation and photosynthetic phosphorylation which generate ATP and NADPH. The latters are essential for many cellular functions. A synopsis of the biosynthetic pathways responsible for the formation of heme and Chl is given below. Discussion of various topics is accompanied by appropriate structural formulas that can be viewed in 2 or 3 dimensions (2D or 3D), and can be manipulated on the screen. Proper viewing and manipulation of these formulas require the installation of MDL Chemscape Chime as a browser plug in. Chime can be
DOWNLOADED from the MDL homepage. At this stage the chemical structures in this document are best viewed with Netscape Navigator, version 3.0.
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