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Free oxygen is produced in the biosphere through photolysis (light-driven oxidation and splitting) of water during photosynthesis in cyanobacteria, green algae, and plants. During oxidative phosphorylation in cellular respiration, oxygen is reduced to water, thus closing the biological water-oxygen redox cycle.
Photosynthesis usually refers to oxygenic photosynthesis, a process that produces oxygen. Photosynthetic organisms store the chemical energy so produced within intracellular organic compounds (compounds containing carbon) like sugars, glycogen , cellulose and starches .
Heme D is the site for oxygen reduction to water of many types of bacteria at low oxygen tension. [24] Heme S is related to heme B by having a formyl group at position 2 in place of the 2-vinyl group. Heme S is found in the hemoglobin of a few species of marine worms.
In these tissues, hemoglobin absorbs unneeded oxygen as an antioxidant, and regulates iron metabolism. [12] Excessive glucose in the blood can attach to hemoglobin and raise the level of hemoglobin A1c. [13] Hemoglobin and hemoglobin-like molecules are also found in many invertebrates, fungi, and plants. [14]
In nature, free oxygen is produced by the light-driven splitting of water during oxygenic photosynthesis. According to some estimates, green algae and cyanobacteria in marine environments provide about 70% of the free oxygen produced on Earth, and the rest is produced by terrestrial plants. [77]
In vertebrates, an essential member of the porphyrin group is heme, which is a component of hemoproteins, whose functions include carrying oxygen in the bloodstream. In plants , an essential porphyrin derivative is chlorophyll , which is involved in light harvesting and electron transfer in photosynthesis .
In oxygenic photosynthesis, the first electron donor is water, creating oxygen (O 2) as a by-product. In anoxygenic photosynthesis, various electron donors are used. Cytochrome b 6 f and ATP synthase work together to produce ATP (photophosphorylation) in two distinct ways.
Oxygenic photosynthesis can be performed by plants and cyanobacteria; cyanobacteria are believed to be the progenitors of the photosystem-containing chloroplasts of eukaryotes. Photosynthetic bacteria that cannot produce oxygen have only one photosystem, which is similar to either PSI or PSII.