Eukaryotic Cell

The cells of plants and some protists possess chloroplasts, whose green chlorophyll gives plant leaves their characteristic color. Embedded in an internal membrane, chlorophyll absorbs sunlight and funnels it to a complex set of proteins nearby. Light energy is used to split water into oxygen (released as a waste product) and hydrogen, which is attached to nucleotide carriers. The hydrogen is then reacted with CO₂ from the air to form sugars, the essential high-energy product that powers all of life. Like the mitochondrion, the chloroplast is a relic of a former free-living bacterium, and has its own DNA on its own chromosome.