Plants' energy station: The rubisco enzyme

The rubisco enzyme, which you may have never heard before, is a type of enzyme vital for  photosynthesis and the balance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. How could this miraculous enzyme, made up of inanimate atoms, turn the carbon dioxide molecule into sugar or starch like a chemist?

How does the rubisco enzyme benefit all living things by working slowly, unlike other enzymes that work faster?

An enzyme is a chemical miracle, which has vital importance for living things and which includes details that the human mind could scarcely conceive of.  Without enzymes, no mineral, vitamin or hormone could do its job. None of the functions from the simplest to the most complex would work, or slow down so much as to come to a stop; for example, if there were no enzymes, it would take you 40 years to read this article. Even this example is enough for us to understand the importance of enzymes. However, the vital functions of enzymes are not limited to these activities in the human body.

A Plant Enzyme That Catches Carbon in the Atmosphere

One of the proteins that form under the control of genes by Allah’s leave and again moves under His  control is the enzyme known as  rubisco. The task of rubisco, which is an enzyme found in plant cells, is to capture the carbon dioxide molecules in the air. It is vital that this enzyme, with a structure suitable to capture both oxygen and carbon dioxide, captures carbon dioxide and not oxygen because plants’ photosynthesis and the carbon dioxide balance in the atmosphere take place by this means. Even though oxygen molecules have a structure which they can hold easily, the rubisco enzyme holds only the carbon dioxide molecule and thus plays a role in obtaining food as a result of a series of chemical processes.

Photosynthesis and Carbon Cycle in the Atmosphere

Land-dwelling plants absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide dissolved in water is absorbed by water-dwelling plants and used in photosynthesis. Dying plants have a unique  feature; they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Animals take the carbon released by these plants and use it. Organisms in the seas form carbon-rich plants when they die.

The rubisco enzyme, which is one of the most important and widespread enzymes on Earth that binds  carbon in the atmosphere for the use of photosynthetic bacteria and plants, cleans the planet we live on from excess or waste carbon dioxide by means of this process it carries out. With the help of this  enzyme, every person benefits from this tiny molecular machine, which processes 15% of the carbon in the atmosphere every year, for  every  six to twelve kilos of weight of every person on Earth.

Why Does the Rubisco Enzyme Catch the Carbon Dioxide Molecule?

Carbon is a vital element for all living things because all living organisms are made up of organic carbon compounds. However, carbon in the atmosphere and on the earth is highly oxidized like carbonate minerals and carbon dioxide gas. Therefore, for carbon to be usable and beneficial, it has to be turned into organic compounds. This important task of carbon bonding is carried out by plants, which operate with sunlight. The enzyme called rubisco found in plant cells makes sugar using carbon dioxide in the air and takes on an important task for the continuation of life.

How is the Carbon Dioxide Molecule Caught Used?
 

•    Rubisco takes the carbon dioxide in the air, adds that to a sugar with five carbon atoms and helps form a new sugar molecule with six carbons, which the plant cell needs.

•    The newly formed sugar molecule  divides it into two identical molecules with three carbon atoms each. These molecules are called “phosphoglycerate” and this process is called a “carbon bonding cycle.”

•    There are many ways to use phosphoglycerates in the cell. Five of every six phosphoglycerate molecules are used in the carbon bonding cycle and one is used to make sucrose (table sugar), or stored as starch to be used later. (Rubisco “Highly Tuned” for Fixing Atmospheric Carbon)
 

Rubisco’s Selective Quality

The rubisco enzyme needs to catch carbon dioxide in the air in order to do photosynthesis. However, the amount of oxygen in the air is greater than carbon dioxide. It is known that oxygen is 500 times more prevalent than carbon dioxide when in a gaseous form, and that there is 25 times more oxygen at 250 ° Celsius. In this case, would be expected that rubisco would select oxygen, which is more abundant and active than carbon dioxide in the environment. However, the rubisco enzyme selects the more difficult option. It bonds the carbon dioxide even though it is less common in the environment, with a consciousness that knows its life-saving role. So why does an enzyme with no consciousness and mind choose to do the more difficult process?

The enzyme acting like it is aware of its duty to ensure the oxygen-carbon balance in the world, its delicate calculation and recognizing the molecule it needs, and making a choice to accomplish a series of processes, only  takes place by Almighty Allah’s leave. Rubisco is an enzyme, so it is made up of inanimate molecules. Inanimate molecules acting like they are conscious are only one of the clear evidences that Allah is the Sole Creator Who is All-powerful and superior. Our Lord is the One Who creates out of nothing, and manifests His Self in any being He wills.
 

    I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed satan-

"Yes, indeed! Everyone in the heavens and everyone on the earth belongs to Allah. Those who call on something other than Allah are not really following their partner-gods. They are only following conjecture. They are only guessing." (Surah Yunus, 66)
 

Why Does Rubisco Work Slower Compared to Other Enzymes?

While similar enzymes can process thousands of molecules per second, the rubisco only bonds three carbon dioxide molecules per second. This quality of the rubisco enzyme has aroused the interest of scientists for many years.

Scientists have discovered that this slow pace of the rubisco enzyme  brings  more abundance to the global food chain  and the rubisco enzyme  works slower for this purpose, because plant cells produce many more rubisco enzymes due to this quality. However, it was found that plant cells sometimes synthesize a great amount of rubisco, something on the order of 50% of their total protein mass. This means that half of the proteins in chloroplasts, which are organelles where photosynthesis takes place in green plants, are formed by the rubisco enzyme, so that the protein mass in plants increases.

It is clear that the rubisco enzyme works much slower than other types of enzymes in order to provide more food. If it worked slower than the speed defined by Almighty Allah, none, or very little protein would be produced and it is possible that  there would be no nutrients formed. This would mean that we would need to find another food source to survive. No doubt that Almighty Allah, Who provides for all living things and creates everything with a flawless balance, created the rubisco enzyme in just the right form for living things to maintain their lives.
 

    I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed satan-

"He to Whom the kingdom of the heavens and the earth belongs. He does not have a son and He has no partner in the Kingdom. He created everything and determined it most exactly." (Surat al-Furqan, 2)
 

The Rubisco Enzyme is Under Allah’s Control

The rubisco enzyme, which has an important task for the oxygen in the air we breathe and the nutrients our body needs to be formed, is a blessing of Almighty Allah, Who creates everything with a single command.

The fact that we know life would come to an end in the absence of the rubisco enzyme, which is only one of the countless conditions we need for survival, clearly shows the flawlessness in the creation of Almighty Allah. Our Lord calls people to think about the truths they witness, not to forget the blessings He creates and to thank Allah in the face of miraculous events they witness. Almighty Allah reveals in verses of the Qur’an as follows:
 

    I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed satan-

"Allah is the Creator of everything and He is Guardian over everything. The keys of the heavens and earth belong to Him. It is those who reject Allah’s Signs who are the losers." (Surat az-Zumar, 62-63)
 

Evolutionists’ Great Fallacy

Evolutionists regarded the rubisco enzymes quality of being slow as inefficiency at first, and mutated the enzyme to avoid this flaw and to accelerate it, because they could not realize the superior intelligence of Almighty Allah and the flawlessness in His creation, and they believe that everything in nature has come into existence as a result of blind coincidences. However, it was observed that even with the tiniest change in rubisco, this enzyme allowed oxygenase (that catches the oxygen in the air) reactions to occur.

The rubisco enzyme  had begun to hold oxygen instead of carbon dioxide. This is a major problem, because in this way, they prevented the systems of plants and microorganisms to do photosynthesis, which turns carbon into oxygen, and caused the oxygen in the atmosphere to be held when there was no need. This situation would lead to the end of life on Earth. All of these show that the rubisco enzyme has a flawlessly created arrangement to catch carbon,and that is not inefficient as the evolutionists had presumed. The experiments done have shown yet again that Almighty Allah creates all things with perfect balance, and in a flawless order and that nothing can happen by chance. In one verse of the Qur’an, Almighty Allah reveals that He destroys those who do not believe through the traps those unbelievers themselves set:
 

    I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed satan-

"Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood and it cuts right through it and it vanishes clean away! Woe without end for you for what you portray!" (Surat al-Anbiya’, 18)