C 4 plants are plants which cycle carbon dioxide to 4-carbon sugar compounds in order to enter the C 3 or the Calvin cycle. The C 4 plants are very productive in climatic conditions that are hot and dry and produce a lot of energy. Some of the plants that we usually consume are C4 plants such as pineapple, corn, sugar cane, etc.

Hatch and Slack Pathway In C4 Plants. To fix carbon dioxide, this pathway is the alternate to the C3 cycle. Here, the first formed stable compound – oxaloacetic acid is a 4 carbon compound, hence the name C4 cycle. This pathway is a common sight in several grasses, maize, sugarcane, amaranthus, sorghum. The C4 plants depict a different kind ...

Beans, Rice, Wheat, and Potatoes are an example of plants that follow the C3 pathway. C4 Pathway (Hatch and Slack Pathway) Every photosynthetic plant follows Calvin cycle, but in some plants, there is a primary stage to the Calvin Cycle known as C4 pathway. Plants in tropical desert regions commonly follow the C4 pathway.

When photosynthetic plants, before entering the C3 pathway, produce oxaloacetic acid or a 4-carbon compound as its primary product is known as Hatch and Slack or C4 pathway. The pathway is CAM (crassulacean acid metabolism), when plants grasp the solar energy during the day and use the energy at night time to assimilate or fix carbon dioxide.

C4 plants have developed a special mechanism to avoid the wasteful photorespiration process and increase CO 2 levels. C4 plants use the Hatch and Slack Pathway where CO 2 is converted into oxaloacetic acid (C4 acid) which ensures that RuBisCo has a continuous and abundant supply of CO 2. Therefore, RuBisCo works more as a carboxylase enzyme ...

Carbon Fixation in C 4 Plants. C 4 pathway of carbon fixation is adapted by plants found in a dry tropical region, e.g. maize, sorghum, etc. C 3 and C 4 pathway differ in the first product of carbon fixation. In C 3 plants, 3 carbon compound 3-phosphogyceric acid (PGA) is produced, whereas, in C 4 plants, 4 carbon compound oxaloacetic acid (OAA ...

PEP Carboxylase is an enzyme that catalyses the first step of carbon fixation in C4 and CAM plants. It carboxylates phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) to produce oxaloacetate (OAA). Learn more about PEP Carboxylase, only at BYJU’S.

C4 plants are more efficient in photosynthesis than C3 plants but use more energy. They posses larger number of chloroplasts in the leaf cells. In the C4 plants, the vascular bundles are surrounded by bundle sheath of larger parenchymatous cells, which in turn are surrounded by mesophyll cells.

Majority of the trees, plants and shrubs are C3 plants. Examples – wheat, rice, oats, soybeans, etc. Plants in the tropical region show C4 pathway to minimise water loss. Examples – bermudagrass, maize, sorghum, etc. CAM plants also use a separate pathway to reduce water loss through photorespiration. Examples – cacti, pineapple.

C4 plants use PEP carboxylase to capture more carbon dioxide in the mesophyll cells and shuttled it to bundle-sheath cells as malate. In these bundle-sheath cells carbon dioxide is released by decarboxylation of the malate. Therefore, C4 plants are more efficient at fixing carbon dioxide than C3 plants.