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"The chemistry of life is organized into metabolic pathways" A "metabolic pathway" is a sequence of chemical reactions that lead from some chemical starting point and end at some chemical end product. Example: The starting point might be the food molecules you eat; and the end product might be the pigment in your eye; or it might be a steroid hormone; or it might be a particular behavior. A short metabolic pathway is illustrated in Figure
9.9 of your text.
You may recall the class demonstration where a spoon full of sugar was burned, releasing the stored chemical energy, i.e. breaking the covalent bonds. Fig. 9.9 illustrates "glycolysis," the first of three pathways whereby enzymes break the sugar down into CO2 and H2O, releasing the energy to drive cellular work. Millions of chemical reactions, making up thousands of chemical pathways, are going on in our bodies every moment. Each reaction, or step in the pathway, requires its own unique enzyme. 1.1 There are two kinds of chemical pathways:
catabolic
& anabolic.
List an activity going on in your body that is
catabolic. ______________________________.
Glycolysis, a pathway that breaks down large molecules into smaller ones, is best described as? a. catalysisGeneral Biology Online! Copyright © 2000 by Bill Wilcox 941 637-5639 |
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