MARTINEZ, NICOLE A.

11-LOYALTY

METABOLISM
What is Metabolism?

“Metabolism refers to a series of chemical reactions that occur in a living organism to sustain life.”

Metabolism is the total amount of the biochemical reactions involved in maintaining the living condition of the cells in an
organism. All living organisms require energy for different essential processes and for producing new organic substances.

Metabolic Processes

Catabolism – This process is mainly involved in breaking down larger organic molecules into smaller molecules. This
metabolic process releases energy.

Anabolism – This process is mainly involved in building up or synthesizing compounds from simpler substances required
by the cells. This metabolic process requires and stores energy.

Nutrition and Energy

The processes of metabolism depend on the nutrients that get digested to produce energy. This energy is necessary to
synthesize nucleic acids, proteins and other biomolecules in our body.

Carbohydrates are supplied in three forms:

 Starch
 Sugar
 Cellulose

Starch and sugar are the major forms of energy for humans. Metabolism of carbohydrates and sugar helps in the
production of glucose.

Proteins in Metabolism

Proteins are important for building tissues. They help in maintaining the structure of the cells, its functions, the
formation of haemoglobin, and several other body functions. The amino acids of proteins are beneficial for nutrition.
Few amino acids are not synthesized by the body and are taken in from the food we eat. These amino acids include:

 Lysine
 Tryptophan
 Methionine
 Isoleucine
 Leucine
 Phenylalanine
 Valine
 Threonine

How to Increase Metabolism?

Metabolism can be increased by:

- To be fit and healthy, we need to avoid more calories intake and lose extra pounds. We eat to deliver energy for
our body to perform its functions. Eating too little quantities could slow down our metabolism and body cannot
provide essential minerals. As per the research, extreme dieting leads to weight loss which is muscle mass and
not fat mass.
- Having proper breakfast, boost up the body’s metabolism and keeps us energetic throughout the day. Skipping
morning breakfast are more likely to have poor metabolic energy.
- Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system and can activate our metabolism rate by 5 to 8 percent.
- According to researchers, fibre can help in burning fat by 30 percent. People who include more fibre in their diet
remain fit and healthy.
- Including more organic foods like peaches, bell peppers, celery, apples, lettuce, grapes can boost up the
metabolism rate in our body.

The Law of Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics – the study of energy transfer that occurs in molecules of collection of molecules.
System – particular item or collection of items which could be something as small as a cell, or a large as an ecosystem.

Surrounding – everything not in the system.

Three types of system in Thermodynamics: open, closed, isolated

• Open System – can exchanged both energy and matter with its surroundings.

• Closed System – can exchanged only energy with its surroundings, not matter.

• Isolated System – cannot exchanged either matter or energy with its surroundings.

The First Law of Thermodynamics

- Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change form or transferred from one object to another.
- Energy among processes.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

- Energy transfer that takes place will increase entropy of the universe and reduce the amount of reusable energy
available to do work.
- Directionality of the process.
- High degree of organization of living things maintained by a constant input energy, and is offset by an increase in
the entropy of the surrounding.

Hydrolysis of ATP and Reaction Coupling

A cell can be thought of as a small, bustling town. Carrier proteins move substances into and out of the cell, motor
proteins carry cargoes along microtubule tracks, and metabolic enzymes busily break down and build up
macromolecules.

Even if they would not be energetically favorable (energy-releasing, or exergonic) in isolation, these processes will
continue merrily along if there is energy available to power them (much as business will continue to be done in a town as
long as there is money flowing in). However, if the energy runs out, the reactions will grind to a halt, and the cell will
begin to die.

Energetically unfavorable reactions are “paid for” by linked, energetically favorable reactions that release energy. Often,
the “payment” reaction involves one particular small molecule: adenosine triphosphate, or ATP.

ATP structure and hydrolysis

Adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, is a small, relatively simple molecule. It can be thought of as the main energy currency
of cells, much as money is the main economic currency of human societies. The energy released by hydrolysis
(breakdown) of ATP is used to power many energy-requiring cellular reactions.

Structurally, ATP is an RNA nucleotide that bears a chain of three phosphates. At the center of the molecule lies a five-
carbon sugar, ribose, which is attached to the nitrogenous base adenine and to the chain of three phosphates.

The three phosphate groups, in order of closest to furthest from the ribose sugar, are labeled alpha, beta, and gamma.
ATP is made unstable by the three adjacent negative charges in its phosphate tail, which “want” very badly to get further
away from each other. The bonds between the phosphate groups are called phosphoanhydride bonds, and you may hear
them referred to as “high-energy” bonds.

Hydrolysis of ATP

Why are the phosphoanhydride bonds considered high-energy? All this really means is that an appreciable amount of
energy is released when one of these bonds is broken in a hydrolysis (water-mediated breakdown) reaction. ATP is
hydrolyzed to ADP in the following reaction:

Like most chemical reactions, the hydrolysis of ATP to ADP is reversible. The reverse reaction, which regenerates ATP
from ADP and and Pi, requires energy. Regeneration of ATP is important because cells tend to use up (hydrolyze) ATP
molecules very quickly and rely on replacement ATP being constantly produced¹.

You can think of ATP and ADP as being sort of like the charged and uncharged forms of a rechargeable battery (as shown
above). ATP, the charged battery, has energy that can be used to power cellular reactions. Once the energy has been
used up, the uncharged battery (ADP) must be recharged before it can again be used as a power source. The ATP
regeneration reaction is just the reverse of the hydrolysis reaction:

Reaction coupling

How is the energy released by ATP hydrolysis used to power other reactions in a cell? In most cases, cells use a strategy
called reaction coupling, in which an energetically favorable reaction (like ATP hydrolysis) is directly linked with an
energetically unfavorable (endergonic) reaction. The linking often happens through a shared intermediate, meaning that
a product of one reaction is “picked up” and used as a reactant in the second reaction.

When two reactions are coupled, they can be added together to give an overall reaction, and the ΔG of this reaction will
be the sum of the ΔG values of the individual reactions. As long as the overall ΔG is negative, both reactions can take
place. Even a very endergonic reaction can occur if it is paired with a very exergonic one (such as hydrolysis of ATP). For
instance, we can add up a pair of generic reactions coupled by a shared intermediate, B, as follows:

ATP in reaction coupling

When reaction coupling involves ATP, the shared intermediate is often a phosphorylated molecule (a molecule to which
one of the phosphate groups of ATP has been attached). As an example of how this works, let’s look at the formation of
sucrose, or table sugar, from glucose and fructose.

Case study: Let’s make sucrose!

The formation of sucrose requires an input of energy: its ΔG is about +27kJ/mol (under standard conditions). ATP
hydrolysis has a ΔG around -30 kJ/ under standard conditions, so it can release enough energy to “pay” for the synthesis
of a sucrose molecule:

How is the energy released in ATP hydrolysis channeled into the production of a sucrose molecule? As it turns out, there
are actually two reactions that take place, not just one big reaction, and the product of the first reaction acts as a
reactant for the second.

 In the first reaction, a phosphate group is transferred from ATP to glucose, forming a phosphorylated glucose
intermediate (glucose-P). This is an energetically favorable (energy-releasing) reaction because ATP is so
unstable, i.e., really “wants” to lose its phosphate group.
 In the second reaction, the glucose-P intermediate reacts with fructose to form sucrose. Because glucose-P is
relatively unstable (thanks to its attached phosphate group), this reaction also releases energy and is
spontaneous.

This example shows how reaction coupling involving ATP can work through phosphorylation, breaking a reaction
down into two energetically favored steps connected by a phosphorylated (phosphate-bearing) intermediate. This
strategy is used in many metabolic pathways in the cell, providing a way for the energy released by converting ATP to
ADP to drive other reactions forward.

Different types of reaction coupling in the cell

The example above shows how ATP hydrolysis can be coupled to a biosynthetic reaction. However, ATP hydrolysis can
also be coupled to other classes of cellular reactions, such as the shape changes of proteins that transport other
molecules into or out of the cell.

Case study: Sodium-potassium pump

It’s energetically unfavorable to move sodium (Na^+) out of, or potassium (K^+) into, a typical cell, because this
movement is against the concentration gradients of the ions. ATP provides energy for the transport of sodium and
potassium by way of a membrane-embedded protein called the sodium-potassium pump (Na+/K+ pump).
In this process, ATP transfers one of its phosphate groups to the pump protein, forming ADP and a phosphorylated
“intermediate” form of the pump. The phosphorylated pump is unstable in its original conformation (facing the
inside of the cell), so it becomes more stable by changing shape, opening towards the outside of the cell and
releasing sodium ions outside. When extracellular potassium ions bind to the phosphorylated pump, they trigger the
removal of the phosphate group, making the protein unstable in its outward-facing form. The protein will then
become more stable by returning to its original shape, releasing the potassium ions inside the cell.