At some stage of our lives we have heard “ATP”, and not, I’m not referring to the Tennis tour dominated by the big 3 (Nole, Rafa and Fed), although this week Antalya and Delray Beach are taking place on the screen, and I’ll give you some nice stats once they are over. But, as I was saying, when I say ATP I mean “Adenosine Triphosphate”, also known as the Molecular Bitcoin… sorry… the molecular unit of currency.
The previous one is cliche in the bio classes either in elementary or high school, but have you ever wondered why?
Let’s start with the structure
Ok I know it can be challenging, but if we chop it maybe it’s a lot easier to understand.
ADENINE
Adenine is a nitrogenous base (yes, just like the ones of DNA, among T, C and G, and U in case of the NRA) of the purine kind, which means it has two merged rings: a pyrimidine, the hexagon; and the imidazole, the pentagon. Both have a particular heteroatom, the nitrogen (that’s why it’s called nitrogenous… No sh** Sherlock!) that replace the usual carbon there.
RIBOSE
Ribose is a pentose, a.k.a: a 5 carbon sugar, and yes, it’s also the same ribose that’s in the RNA, and if you reduce it electrochemically (take away one oxygen) at the right place, you would obtain Deoxyribose, which is at the DNA. Now everything makes sense, right?
The linked Ribose with the Adenine molecule is known as the adenosine nucleotide, so now we have the first part of the name “Adenosine Triphosphate”
TRIPHOSPHATE
The simpler one to understand, I guess, if we have 1 phosphorus, we would use the prefix mono, for 2 P’s would be di or bi, and for the 3 P’s… tri, just like in the word triangle, trident, etc.
The ate suffix means classically “that which contains oxygen”, and for the modern IUPAC, it means that the phosphorus is at its highest oxidation state. Now it’s complete the term “Adenosine Triphosphate”.
So, now that we understand such a weird name (always us, the chemists, that like to complicate things) let’s try to understand why it is the “molecular currency”. Molecules don’t care actually for the money, what they really want to know if it’s undergoing through certain reactions and becoming a new chemical species, and that’s easy to know whether you release or you need energy.
Imagine that you are seated on your couch watching TV
You are ROFLing and LOLing because, I don’t know, maybe a guy got hit with a coconut or something like that, you are releasing laughs and energy, and as long as you are doing that, you are slipping on your couch, start feeling dizzy, so comfortable...
And then you fall asleep:
That’s a favorable reaction, releasing energy to go from an excited state to a relaxed state. What’s not so favorable is going the reverse way, so you are not lazy when you cannot wake up in the mornings, it’s just a matter of thermodynamics.
This is where the ATP comes in, just like that odd friend you have that actually LIKES waking up early to exercise and that offers themself to call you and wake you up. The ATP do something similar thanks to the break of this bond:
When that happens, a huge amount of energy is expelled, enough to help other molecules that don’t want to get off the bed, to make exercises and become fitness molecules, new molecules.
DID YOU KNOW?...
There is an altcoin called Atlas Protocol that has the same initials as Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP), and you can find it #958 according to the CMC ranking and it can be traded @ Huobi, Gate.io and LBank. You should check it out trought their medium and twitter accounts
Non favorable reactions, or molecules that don’t wanna wake up, are known as endergonic reactions, and ATP couples with them to motivate them and make a better version of themselves. And guess what… a lot of reactions needed to live are endergonic, so, thanks to the ATP you can breath, so always remember that altruist behaviour...
Or not quite....
Because Friedman said that there is no such thing as a free lunch, ATP doesn’t come from nowhere, we obtain some ATP thanks to capitalis… I mean catabolism of our body, a process in which big f@t @ss molecules like proteins, carbohydrates and lipids are converted into simple molecules and some ATP coins, that are used later on the anabolism part, where the building blocks for our cells and our body are made up. It’s like playing with legos
Let’s say that you eat this:
But your body synthesize this using the previous blocks
Cause that’s what you need, some minarchist liberali… I mean… reorganize the main ingredients of what you eat to turn them into molecules that your cells use to work correctly. And among all those processes there is ATP involved… and also some NADH and FADH2… but that’s another story for another day!
Hope you enjoyed this article, I want to let you know that I made a PDF version so you can read it offline if you want, and at the same time support this new science communication journey I'm in. Here is the FREE LINK to download the PDF or you can click the image below. THANKS A LOT
Sources
Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). The Body’s Energy Storage Molecule. http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/atp/atph.htm
Encyclopedia of Biology. Don Rittner & Timothy L. McCabe.
NOTE: Images with "no source" are edited or made by myself.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT UPTRENND BY ME
