Figure 10.10A Tracing the Pathway of CO₂

Original Papers: Calvin and his colleagues described their experiments in a series of 26 papers titled “The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis.” Perhaps the most important was one that showed how labeled CO₂ could be used a tracer:

Benson, A. A., J. A. Bassham, M. Calvin, T. C. Goodale, V. A. Haas and W. Stepka. 1950. The path of carbon in photosynthesis. V. Paper chromatography and radioautography of the products. Journal of the American Chemical Society 72: 1710–1718.

How is CO₂ incorporated into carbohydrate during photosynthesis? What is the first stable covalent linkage that forms with the carbon of CO₂? Melvin Calvin and his colleagues used short exposures to ¹⁴CO₂ to identify the first compound formed from CO₂.