"Metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cellular processes; the conversion of food to building blocks for proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates; and the elimination of metabolic wastes."
Study of the chemical reactions that occur within cells, including enzymes, metabolic pathways, and nutrient cycles.
Chemical Bonds and Interactions: Understanding how enzymes interact with molecules in order to catalyze reactions is essential to learning about enzyme function.
Catalysts: Enzymes act as catalysts that speed up biochemical reactions, which play a critical role in metabolism.
Substrate Specificity: Understanding how enzymes recognize and bind to specific substrates is crucial for understanding enzyme function.
Enzyme Kinetics: Understanding enzyme kinetics deals with the rate at which substrate conversion occurs in the presence of enzymes as catalysts.
Enzyme Inhibition: The mechanisms of enzyme inhibition of specific enzymes.
Allosteric Enzymes: Understanding that Enzyme Activity can change through allosterism is critical knowledge in enzymology.
Covalent Enzyme Modifications: Certain enzymes can have post-translational covalent modifications that affect their activity.
Enzyme Assays: Experimental methods used to determine enzyme activity and kinetics are known as enzyme assays.
Enzyme Regulation: Metabolism works under proper regulation of the enzymes, hence learning how enzymes are regulated is important to metabolism.
Enzyme Biochemistry: Exploring in depth the chemistry behind enzyme mechanisms is essential.
Metabolic Pathways: The organization of metabolic pathways and how they interact is a critical concept in biochemistry.
Energy Metabolism: Understanding how metabolic pathways produce and consume energy is essential to understanding metabolism as a whole.
Metabolic Control: Understanding the factors and mechanisms that control metabolic pathways is crucial for understanding regulation.
Cell Membranes: The structures are involved in cellular transport, and enzymes that are employed in transport are critical to the organism’s metabolism.
Protein Structures: Understanding how protein structure relates to function is essential for further understanding enzymes and metabolism.
Metabolic Diseases: Learning about some of the many diseases linked to metabolic dysregulation (like diabetes) can be an eye-opening start in enzymology.
Substrate-Level Phosphorylation: A metabolic process wherein phosphorylation occurs as a result of cleaving high-energy bonds.
Enzyme Co-factors and Co-enzymes: The relationship between enzymes and their auxiliary organic or inorganic enzymes.
Enzyme Inactivation: Understanding the factors that can control or impact the activeness of enzymes (such as enzyme concentration and temperature).
Bioenergetics: Bioenergetics involves understanding the physical and chemical processes of living organisms and how they affect reactions within a cell, ultimately relating to enzymes and metabolism.
Reaction Thermodynamics: Understanding Kinetic and Thermodynamic qualities of enzymes and metabolic reactions.
Heavy Metals: Certain heavy metals that are lethal to organisms can affect enzyme activity, contamination from sources like dietary supplements can even harm humans. Understanding this helps not only understand enzymes but also human health.
Oxidoreductases: These enzymes catalyze reactions that involve the transfer of electrons. Examples include alcohol dehydrogenase and catalase.
Transferases: These enzymes catalyze reactions that involve the transfer of functional groups from one molecule to another. Examples include transaminases and kinase.
Hydrolases: These enzymes catalyze the breakdown of molecules by adding water. Examples include lipases and peptidases.
Lyases: These enzymes catalyze reactions that involve the breaking down of molecules without the addition of water or transfer of electrons. Examples include decarboxylases and synthases.
Isomerases: These enzymes catalyze the interconversion of isomers, molecules with the same chemical formula but different structures. Examples include aldolase and mutase.
Ligases: These enzymes catalyze reactions that join two molecules together by forming a covalent bond. Examples include DNA ligases and pyruvate carboxylase.
Catabolism: This is the process of breaking down complex molecules into simpler ones, releasing energy in the process.
Anabolism: This is the process of building complex molecules from simpler ones, requiring energy input.
Glycolysis: This is the metabolic pathway that breaks down glucose into pyruvate, generating ATP in the process.
Citric Acid Cycle: This metabolic pathway produces ATP through the oxidation of acetyl-CoA.
Oxidative Phosphorylation: This process involves the generation of ATP through electron transport chain in the mitochondria.
Pentose Phosphate Pathway: This pathway generates pentose sugars for nucleotide synthesis.
Gluconeogenesis: This is the metabolic pathway that generates glucose from non-carbohydrate sources, such as amino acids or glycerol.
Lipid Metabolism: This includes the breakdown of fats and the synthesis of lipids.
Amino Acid Metabolism: This involves the breakdown of amino acids and the formation of new ones.
"Metabolic reactions may be categorized as catabolic – the breaking down of compounds (for example, of glucose to pyruvate by cellular respiration); or anabolic – the building up (synthesis) of compounds (such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and nucleic acids)."
"Enzymes are crucial to metabolism because they allow organisms to drive desirable reactions that require energy and will not occur by themselves, by coupling them to spontaneous reactions that release energy."
"Enzymes act as catalysts – they allow a reaction to proceed more rapidly – and they also allow the regulation of the rate of a metabolic reaction, for example in response to changes in the cell's environment or to signals from other cells."
"The chemical reactions of metabolism are organized into metabolic pathways, in which one chemical is transformed through a series of steps into another chemical, each step being facilitated by a specific enzyme."
"The metabolic system of a particular organism determines which substances it will find nutritious and which poisonous."
"The basal metabolic rate of an organism is the measure of the amount of energy consumed by all of these chemical reactions."
"These similarities in metabolic pathways are likely due to their early appearance in evolutionary history, and their retention is likely due to their efficacy."
"In various diseases, such as type II diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and cancer, normal metabolism is disrupted."
"The metabolism of cancer cells is also different from the metabolism of normal cells, and these differences can be used to find targets for therapeutic intervention in cancer."
"Metabolism (, from Greek: μεταβολή metabolē, 'change')."
"Usually, catabolism releases energy, and anabolism consumes energy."
"These enzyme-catalyzed reactions allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments."
"The word metabolism can also refer to the sum of all chemical reactions that occur in living organisms, including digestion and the transportation of substances into and between different cells, in which case the above described set of reactions within the cells is called intermediary (or intermediate) metabolism."
"The elimination of metabolic wastes."
"Enzymes allow organisms to drive desirable reactions that require energy and will not occur by themselves, by coupling them to spontaneous reactions that release energy."
"Metabolic pathways are important because they allow chemical transformation through a series of steps, each facilitated by a specific enzyme."
"For example, some prokaryotes use hydrogen sulfide as a nutrient, yet this gas is poisonous to animals."
"The conversion of food to building blocks for proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates."
"The differences in metabolism between cancer cells and normal cells can be used to find targets for therapeutic intervention in cancer."