A. Calvin Cycle Discussion on Biology-Online.Org's Forum
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Cordova's Finding: Affirming NSF's Definition of Francis K. Fong's Discovery of Margerum's Work of Fiction that Begot the Calvin Cycle and its Z scheme A. Calvin Cycle Discussion on Biology-Online.Org's Forum This post complements NSFfunding.com's Website on Calvin cycle, the dark reactions in photosynthesis. There is an interesting discussion on biology-online.org/biology-forum under the title, "the Calvin cycle???help please." First, the universally accepted interpretation of the Calvin cycle is described: "NADPH is actually electron provided and made blablabla, not hydrogen. And last, but not least this triose called glyceraldehyde phosphate is primarily recycled, that's why is it called 'The Calvin CYCLE,' and why it can work all the time - Just a minor part is transformed to hexose (primarily fructose), the rest has nothing to do with the Calvin cycle." Then, Biology-Online.Org's discussion departs from the accepted interpretation, in that Melvin Calvin, to whom is attributed the Calvin cycle, or the dark reactions in photosynthesis, had nothing to do with the Calvin cycle. The reason is because Calvin and his group at Berkeley published, in their original papers, findings from their C-14 tracer experiments that the "triose called glyceraldehyde phosphate is NOT recycled." Calvin et al reported a carboxylation reaction in photosynthesis which is neither dark nor cyclic, but a photoreductive reaction. The CO2 assimilated from the air by the RuBP (ribulose bisphosphate) results in reductive splitting of the 6-C intermediate into one molecule of PGA (phosphoglycerate) and the other a triose, glyceraldehyde phosphate, which condenses to make glucose and, then, starch. This post provides a detailed analysis of the author Francis K. Fong's discovery of the Calvin cycle, or, the mechanism by which the Calvin cycle, or the dark reactions in photosynthesis, came into being. B. The Calvin Cycle, an Unlikely Fraud This post and the above quote on the Calvin cycle as an imperishable fraud should be read in conjunction with the National Science Foundation OIG's determination upon NSF's explanation of Fong's discovery of the Calvin cycle, the dark reactions in photosynthesis - a work of fiction by a Purdue instructor. The NSF explains the discovery in terms of negligence for its flawed review of Fong's NSF proposal, No. DCB 8822928. The explanation was followed by NSF OIG's determination, that the Calvin cycle was a fraud. Unfortunately, this determination was complicated by countermeasures to State Director Keith Luse's (Lugar) commitment of a GAO review, which resulted in the killing of Don MacLauchlan, vice-president of Carbon Reduction, sponsor for DCB 8822928. This post follows closely NSF Division Director Bruce Umminger's reading of the original papers by Calvin et al; and was necessitated by the belated corroboration, an independent finding by Purdue President and NSB (National Science Board) member France A. Cordova, done in response to Fong's request to clarify PEFCU's payment, in 1978, of the $48,903.81 from Treasury to revenue officers and NSF OIG employees. The Calvin cycle as an unlikely false claim by a Purdue instructor differs qualitatively from a second, equally improbable false claim by another Purdue researcher, something called the "tabletop thermal bubbles for nuclear fusion involving high-energy particles." Whereas the "tabletop thermal bibles" as a fraud, like most frauds in science, was exposed by the work of others in the field, the Calvin cycle was embraced by those who knew it as a fraud by their own finding of the light carboxylation reaction. Former Purdue President and NSB chairman Steve Beering on the PX 45 tape attributed this difference to the Calvin cycle as the product of a secret procedure called the Blue-Book formula, a money-making proposition by which Purdue trustees used federal reimbursement moneys from PCDF's (Purdue-Calumet Development Foundation) East Chicago Loan and Grant Contract to invest in the Munster Plains real estate development, as described in Fong's reports of 1995 and 1996 to IR Commissioner Richardson. In the discussion to follow, Fong reproduces NSF's determination of 1989, of how a work of fiction became the Calvin cycle, the universally acclaimed "synthesis in the light of biomass from water and carbon dioxide in the dark." He reports the NSF's demonstration of how the Calvin cycle became established, not by reviewer negligence on the part of NSF program directors, but by a knowing, patterned activity calculated to penetrate the United States Treasury. C. Margerum's Work of Fiction that Became the Calvin Cycle I. Differentiating Carboxylation Reaction in the Dark (D) from that in Light (L) In the Calvin cycle the uptake of carbon dioxide by the 5-carbon ribulose bisphosphate, RuBP, results in the release of two molecules of the 3-carbon D-glycerate-3-phosphate, 3-PGA. With the "high-energy phosphoanhydride bonds" in the ATP, adenosine triphosphate, and the reducing agent, NADPH (the reduced form of NADP+, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate) obtained from the "Z- scheme of light reactions," the 3-PGA molecules from the RuBP carboxylation then undergo thermally activated reduction in the dark to sugar. Meanwhile, the C-14 experiments by the Berkeley researchers led them to the conclusion that the RuBP carboxylation reaction in the light results in the photoreduction of carbon without the participation of ATP. A review of this finding, which is briefly summarized below, was published in the definitive research monograph on this subject, Bassham,J.A. and Calvin,M. (1957) "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis," Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J. In 1952, Calvin reported [Calvin,M. and Massini,P. (1952) Experientia 8, 445-484] the formation of PGA in an overall reaction requiring RuBP and carbon dioxide. He delineated two pathways for the uptake of one carbon dioxide molecule by the 5-carbon RuBP. In the light, the carboxylation reaction resulted in the formation of one mlecule of PGA and one of triose, a three-carbon molecule at the sugar oxidation level, but that in the dark gave two molecules of PGA. Fig.1. Wilson and Calvin (1955) In June of 1955, Calvin submitted a manuscript for publication in the Journal of American Society [Wilson,A.T. and Calvin,M. (1955) J. Am. Chem. Soc. 77, 5948-5957], Fig.1, in which he reported detailed experimental procedures in corroboration of Calvin and Massini (1952). Wilson and Calvin (1955) showed proof (pictured right) of the designations in Calvin and Massini (1952) of the two different fates of the carboxylation reaction in the light (L) and dark (D). The two reaction pathways are schematically shown below: RuBP + CO2 ────> Triose →→→ Sucrose (L) | ──> 3-PGA RuBP + CO2 ────> 3-PGA + 3-PGA (D) + CO2 ────> 2 3-PGA (D) II. Grutzner's Exposition of the Photosynthetic Path of Carbon Fig.2. Purdue's affidavit. At this point, Fong presents John Grutzner's elegant explanation, Fig.2, in a few words, of the seemingly convoluted development (1952 to the present) called the Calvin cycle. Reaction (D) was established by Horecker et al (1956) [Weissbach.A., Horecker,B.L. and Hurwitz, J. (1956) J. Biol. Chem. 218, 795-810] and Ochoa et al (1956) [Jakoby,W.B., Brummond,D.O., and Ochoa, S.J. (1956) J. Biol. Chem. 218, 811-822], who reported its occurrence in the dark, using purified enzyme (RuBP carbolase/oxygenase) preparations outside of the living plant. The in vitro demonstration of reaction (D) was important, because its characterization provides a comparison and contrast for the Wilson and Calvin's observation of in vivo carbon reduction as the light reaction (L). In in vivo experiments using living plant cells, Wilson and Calvin could find no evidence of reaction (D). Instead, they found only reaction (L), in which only one half of the carbon fixation product appears as the PGA, whereas the other half is directly reduced in the light to yield triose, and then sucrose. Wilson and Calvin described reactions (L) and (D) as endergonic and exergonic, respectively; the reduction of the PGA from (D) would require ATP and NADPH, whereas (L) would occur spontaneously in the light. These authors further observed that photosynthetic carbon reduction to produce sucrose occurs in a non-cyclic reaction, while the PGA produced in reaction (L) enters into the dark reactions of the reductive pentose phosphate cycle to regenerate the 5-carbon RuBP. Reaction (L) thus provides a direct coupling between the light and dark reactions in plant photosynthesis. Calvin et al's observations of the properties of reaction (L) in Wilson and Calvin (1955) and in their extensive subsequent studies were summarized by Calvin, see, Calvin,M. and Pon,N.G. (1959) J. Cellular Comp. Physiol., 54, Suppl. 1, 51-74. The original papers by Calvin et al provided the basis for the Fong- Butcher model (1988) of photoreductive carbon fixation in photosynthesis. On 9-4-10, Grutzner provided Fong with an elegant, but simple, explanation (pictured above left) of the Fong- Butcher "correction" of Calvin's differentiation, Calvin and Pon (1959) at Fig. 27, of Reaction (L) from Reaction (D). Summing up, in Calvin and Massini (1952) and Wilson and Calvin (1955), Calvin described Reaction (L) as one occurring in the light, in which the PGA undergoes photoreduction to triose without the intervention of the ATP and NADPH. III. How Margerum's Work of Fiction Became the Calvin Cycle Fig.3. 14th ACS NOS program. Upon J. Am. Chem. Soc.'s receipt on 6-20-55 of the Wilson and Calvin manuscript, on a following Wednesday morning, Calvin presented his findings at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory of the carboxylation Reactions (L) and (D) in the prestigious 14th ACS (American Chemical Society) National Organic Chemistry Symposium (NOS) held at the Chemistry Department of Purdue University, Fig.3.