The Adventures of ‘Lil’ e- Cosmologists tell us there are 1010...

The Adventures of ‘Lil’ e-
Cosmologists tell us there are 10100 atoms in our universe. If we add in the subatomic particles, the number must go up at least a few more orders of magnitude. Think about a particular subatomic particle we all know and (should) love: the electron. This problem is about one very special electron we can ‘Lil’e- ---and a few of its adventures during its very, very, very long life (in fact, its life lasts at least as long as our universe or maybe even longer).

This brief period in its life began about 40,000 years ago in a special place on a P700 chlorophyll molecule within a chloroplast of Populus trichocarpa growing in a western European forest. Early morning sunlight struck the leaf containing this chloroplast and something miraculous took place and a short time later ‘Lil’ e- found itself in a glucose molecule within a seed of this plant. Soon after, the seed containing this particular glucose molecule was foraged by a genetically identical ancestor of Mus musculus domesticus. During the day, ‘Lil’ e- ended up in the 3rd lysine in a β-globin protein of hemoglobin and was circulating in the bloodstream of this mammal.

Unfortunately, the following morning this particular animal was rooted out and consumed by Sus scrofa and by the next morning, ‘Lil’ e- could be found in the 4th phenylalanine of the enzyme hexokinase expressed in the liver of this member of the genus Sus. The next day, this animal had the misfortune of being killed by a small band of Homo neanderthalensis hunters and during the celebration over a successful hunt, a portion of the liver containing ‘Lil’ e- was consumed late that evening by one of the hunters. Since this specie primarily consumes protein with small amounts of foraged carbohydrates, during the night ‘Lil’ e- found its way into the hunter’s liver glycogen and by noon the following day it was in the 6th carbon of palmitate for a short period of time. Later that next night it was found in the 45th thymine (after the start codon) of the gene encoding subunit 1 of the NADH Dehydrogenase protein. The following morning ‘Lil’ e- found its way into fumarate and soon after, while getting a drink of water from what later would be called the Düssel River, the moisture in the hunter’s breath condensed and a water molecule containing ‘Lil’ e- fell into the river concluding another chapter in its very long life.
Your task is to identify and show in detail every step along the path of ‘Lil’ e- during this particular adventure. Include chemical structures and exact bond placement of ‘Lil’ e- through its journey from the start to finish as well as discuss genes, proteins, enzymes (and show their relevant sequences) and co-factors involved during this short period in the life of ‘Lil’ e-.