Hatch & Slack Pathway or C4Cycle or Dicarboxylic Acid Pathway or Dicarboxylation Pathway
Hatch & Slack Pathway or C4Cycle or Dicarboxylic Acid Pathway or Dicarboxylation Pathway Till 1965, Calvin cycle is the only pathway for CO2 fixation. But in 1965, Kortschak, Hart and Burr made observations in sugarcane and found C4 or dicarboxylic acid pathway. Malate and aspartate are the major labelled products. This observation was confirmed by Hatch & Slack in 1967. This alternate pathway for the fixation of CO2 was found in several tropical and sub-tropical grasses and some dicots. C4 cycle is discovered in more than 1000 species. Among them 300 species belong to dicots and rest of them are monocots. C4 plants represent about 5% of Earth’s plant biomass and 1% of its known plant species. Despite this scarcity, they account for about 30% of terrestrial carbon fixation. Increasing the proportion of C4 plants on earth could assist biosequestration of CO2 and represent an important climate change avoidance strategy. C4 pathway is completed in two phases, first ...