Basics of Metabolic Reactions
- Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois 60611, USA
- Correspondence: Nav{at}northwestern.edu
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Metabolism performs four essential functions for cells.
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It provides energy by generating ATP to conduct cellular functions.
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It converts nutrients, such as fat, protein, and sugar, into simpler structures, such as fatty acids, amino acids, and glucose, respectively (i.e., catabolism). This process can generate energy.
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It converts simpler structures into macromolecules, such as nucleotides, lipids, and proteins (i.e., anabolism). This process requires energy.
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It participates in cellular functions beyond energy, anabolism, and catabolism, such as cellular signaling and gene transcription. For example, metabolites serve as substrates for posttranslational modification of proteins to elicit changes in protein function or regulate epigenetics to invoke changes in gene expression.
As an example, the metabolism of acetyl-CoA fulfills all four of these functions (Fig. 1). Nutrients, such as fat, protein, and table sugar, are converted into simpler structures, such as fatty acids, amino acids, and glucose, respectively (i.e., catabolism). All three can generate acetyl-CoA, …
