Notes on Metabolism

[Metabolism is the totality of an organism's chemical reactions; an emergent property of life that arises from interaction between molecules within the orderly environment of the cell [Catabolic pathways release energy by breaking down complex molecules to simpler compounds; cellular respiration (sugar glucose broken down to carbon dioxide and water); releases energy [Anabolic pathways consume energy to build complicated molecules form simpler ones; synthesis of a protein from amino acids [Energy coupling links catabolic and …

…is the switching off of a metabolic pathway by its end product, which acts as an inhibitor of an enzyme within the pathway; for example, the inhibition of an ATP-generating catabolic pathway by the allosteric binding of ATP to an enzyme in the pathway [Cooperativity is when an enzyme has two or more subunits, such an interaction with one substrate molecule can trigger the same favorable conformational change in all other subunits of the enzyme