High energy phosphate can mean one of a couple things:
- It can mean the phosphate-phosphate bonds formed when compounds such as adenosine diphosphate and adenosine triphosphate are created.
- It can mean the compounds which contain these bonds, which include the nucleoside diphosphates and nucleoside triphosphates, and the high energy storage compounds of the muscle, the phosphagens. When people speak of a high energy phosphate pool, they speak of the total concentration of these compounds with these high energy bonds.
Reaction | Δ G in Kilojoules/mole |
---|---|
ATP + H2O → ADP + Pi | -36.8 |
ADP + H2O → AMP + Pi | -36.0 |
ATP + H2O → AMP + PPi | -40.6 |
PPi → 2 Pi | -31.8 |
AMP + H2O → A + Pi | -12.6 |
These reactions are generally not allowed to go uncontrolled in the human cell, but generally are coupled to other processes needing energy to drive them to completion. So, high energy phosphate reactions can
- provide energy to cellular processes, to allow them to run
- by coupling processes to a particular nucleoside, allow for regulatory control of the process
- drive the reaction to the right, by taking a reversible process and making it irreversible.
Reference:
- McGilvery, R. W. and Goldstein, G., Biochemistry - A Functional Approach, W. B. Saunders and Co, 1979, 345-351.