section_path: Cells/Photosynthesis
section_name: Photosynthesis
paragraph_text: Photosynthesis
  
  Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organism's metabolic activities via cellular respiration. This chemical energy is stored in carbohydrate molecules, such as sugars, which are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water. In most cases, oxygen is released as a waste product. Most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria perform photosynthesis, which is largely responsible for producing and maintaining the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere, and supplies most of the energy necessary for life on Earth.
  
  Photosynthesis has four stages: Light absorption, electron transport, ATP synthesis, and carbon fixation. Light absorption is the initial step of photosynthesis whereby light energy is absorbed by chlorophyll pigments attached to proteins in the thylakoid membranes. The absorbed light energy is used to remove electrons from a donor (water) to a primary electron acceptor, a quinone designated as Q. In the second stage, electrons move from the quinone primary electron acceptor through a series of electron carriers until they reach a final electron acceptor, which is usually the oxidized form of NADP, which is reduced to NADPH, a process that takes place in a protein complex called photosystem I (PSI). The transport of electrons is coupled to the movement of protons (or hydrogen) from the stroma to the thylakoid membrane, which forms a pH gradient across the membrane as hydrogen becomes more concentrated in the lumen than in the stroma. This is analogous to the proton-motive force generated across the inner mitochondrial membrane in aerobic respiration.
  
  During the third stage of photosynthesis, the movement of protons down their concentration gradients from the thylakoid lumen to the stroma through the ATP synthase is coupled to the synthesis of ATP by that same ATP synthase. The NADPH and ATPs generated by the light-dependent reactions in the second and third stages, respectively, provide the energy and electrons to drive the synthesis of glucose by fixing atmospheric carbon dioxide into existing organic carbon compounds, such as ribulose bisphosphate (RuBP) in a sequence of light-independent (or dark) reactions called the Calvin cycle.