Molecule
Enzyme
A biological catalyst that speeds up a reaction without being used up. Most are proteins, but some RNAs are catalysts too, including the core of the ribosome.
Rubisco
The enzyme that captures carbon dioxide in photosynthesis, often called the most abundant protein on Earth.Source: Bar-On & Milo, 2019
Molecule
How Rubisco connects
Rubisco is an example of
Rubisco is used by
Process
Photosynthesis
Using light energy to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar, releasing oxygen.
Studied in
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Sources & further reading
The explanations on this page are our own summaries of these sources. Follow a link to read the original; if anything here disagrees with it, the original wins. How we choose and check sources.
The global mass and average rate of rubisco (opens the original in a new tab)
Bar-On YM, Milo R (2019). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116:4738-4743.
Estimates about 0.7 gigatonnes of rubisco on Earth, mostly in land plant leaves.
Peer-reviewedPrimary research