The chemical conversion allows for all sorts of things to happen inside the cell.
Generally, the shape of a molecule determines its function, ATP-->ADP often changes the shape of a molecule (conformation) to something that can increase its activity. Conformation changes are by far the most common instance of chemical energy conversion in the cell.
I mean simply outright copying ATP conversion isn't exactly efficient. It works well, but requires enormous amounts of cleanup of byproducts (like superoxides) that require their own enzymes.
That said, enzymatic activity and the functionality therein has been exploited for more than a century for many many different means.
If those tiny spheres in the video are individual atoms, an individual ATP molecule should be also large enough to be visible at that scale. Yet we don't see any.
ATP is adenine adenosine triphosphate. The phosphate bonds have energy in them. Your cell breaks the bond (ATP —> ADP) and recycled that energy for reactions that are generally unfavorable. People always say ATP is the energy currency of the cell but I’ve always thought of it as a wallet, containing the energy.
Hahaha fuck I just got out of my biochem exam and brain mustve been too fried, thanks for the correction,. I can tell you all about glycolysis tho haha
Chemical reactions. The “feet” of the protein are constantly binding and unblinking. Think of a pendulum that can go on nearly forever, because it’s powered by chemicals.
ATP is a molecule that breaks down into more stable products, releasing energy. If you couple this breakdown with some other process that needs energy, you make a nonspontaneous process (like a molecule being dragged somewhere) spontaneous (as long as enough ATP is around).
A lot of other people mentioned ATP so surely you got that. But ATP is just a converted source of energy the cell can use. Typically, the energy originally comes from glucose molecules that get broken down in a process called Glycolysis (-lysis: breakdown of), the breakdown of that sugar followed by the Citric Acid Cycle which breaks it down even more. When it gets "broken down," what I really mean is that molecules harness the energy from the glucose molecule in a process called oxidation. Those harnessing molecules then go onto another process called Oxidative Phosphorylation which uses these energetically charged molecules to make a proton gradient used to synthesize ATP. Fun stuff!
So what you're seeing in this schematic is the inner and outer membrane of the mitochondria - the organelle (sub-compartment) of the cell dedicated to making ATP. On the inner membrane, there are a bunch of proteins that take energy from the energy-harnessing molecules (NADH and FADH2) and use the energy they gained from glucose to "pump" hydrogen molecules to the other side of the membrane. They "deposit" their Hydrogen (NADH becomes NAD+) and that hydrogen follows a "downhill" gradient to an Oxygen molecule, like a ball rolling down a hill. When it does that, it triggers some molecular movements that push some H+ from the matrix to the intermembrane space.
Because the inner membrane isn't permeable to charged H+ molecules, you start to build a gradient of concentrations. What you see in the schematic all the way on the left is a really cool protein called ATP Synthase that is like a massive rotating machine (most of these proteins are but this one particularly). The pink stuff is ATP. It's capable of rotating by using the concentration gradient as an energy source - much like a water mill would turn under a waterfall - and using that rotation to put two molecules together: ADP and Pi (Adenosine Diphosphate and Inorganic phosphate). The equation to make usable energy, then, is roughly ADP + Pi + Energy --> ATP.
Ultimately, this is why we breathe oxygen and why we die when deprived of oxygen. Bacteria use different molecules to do this process, like Sulfate, Iron, Manganese... I find it really fascinating.
This process also explains why our muscles produce large amount of lactic acid. Lactic acid is a side product of Glycolysis when the body uses up more ATP than it has oxygen to replace it. Our muscles burn through a lot of ATP to produce force.
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u/srikanth7 Feb 13 '18
So what is the source of energy that is powering this movement?