What are analogies for chloroplasts?

Examples

Factory with 2 crews

Getting out our trusty microscope, let's examine a typical leaf. To the naked eye, the whole leaf seems green, but that is an illusion. The individual plant cells that we see under the microscope are not so green after all. Instead, they are mostly transparent, but each contains perhaps 50 to 100 tiny green dots. These dots are the chloroplasts, where the light-sensitive green chlorophyll is found and where photosynthesis takes place. What is going on inside the chloroplasts?

The chloroplast is like a tiny bag with even smaller flattened bags called thylakoids inside it.You could compare the chloroplast to a factory with two crews (PSI and PSII) inside the thylakoids making batteries and delivery trucks (ATP and NADPH) to be used by a third crew (special enzymes) out in the stroma.

That third crew makes sugar by adding hydrogen atoms and carbon dioxide molecules in a precise sequence of chemical reactions using the enzymes in the stroma. All three crews can work during the day, and the sugar crew works a night shift as well, at least until the supplies of ATP and NADPH from the day shift are used up.

First answer by ID1263842247. Last edit by ID1263842247. Question popularity: 15 [recommend question]