ATP Flashcards
What does ATP stand for?
Adenosine Triphosphate
What is ATP?
An immediate source of energy for biological processes?
Why is ATP important for metabolic reactions in cells?
Metabolic reactions in cells must have a steady constant supply of ATP.
What is the structure of ATP similar to?
A DNA nucleotide.
What is ATP made up of?
Adenine (nitrogenous base)
Ribose (pentose sugar)
3 Phosphate Groups
What are the phosphate groups?
Inorganic
Why are the phosphate groups inorganic?
They don’t contain carbon atoms.
What is the symbol to represent inorganic phosphate?
Pi.
When is ATP made?
During respiration from ADP by the addition of an inorganic phosphate via a condensation reaction and using the enzyme ATP synthase.
What is the opposite of the condensation reaction to form ATP?
ATP can be hydrolysed into ADP + Pi using the enzyme ATP hydrolase.
Hydrolysis word equation for ATP?
ATP + H2O -> ADP + Pi + Energy
Condensation word equation for ATP?
ADP + Pi + Energy -> ATP + H2O
What happens when you break one bond between the inorganic phosphate groups?
A small amount of energy is released to the surrounding and can be used in chemical reactions.
Why is ATP an immediate energy source?
Only one bond has to be hydrolysed to release energy.
Can ATP transfer into different compounds?
Yes
What can happen to the inorganic phosphate released during the hydrolysis of ATP?
It can bond onto different compounds to make them more reactive. This is known as phosphorylation.
What is an example of when phosphorylation occurs?
The first stage of respiration in glucose.
Compare the amount of energy released from ATP and glucose.
ATP releases energy in small, manageable amounts so that energy is not wasted and cells won’t over heat from wasted heat energy. In comparison. glucose would release large amounts of energy.
Compare the size of ATP and glucose.
ATP is small and soluble so it is easily transported around the cell. ATP can move around the cytoplasm with ease to provide energy for chemical reactions within the cell. This is the same for glucose.
Compare the bonds broken for ATP and glucose.
ATP only needs one bond to break to release energy whereas glucose requires several bonds to be broken to release energy.
Compare the reactivity of ATP and glucose.
ATP can transfer energy to another molecule by transferring one of its phosphate groups. ATP can enable phosphorylation which makes other compounds more reactive. Glucose can’t do this as it doesn’t contain any phosphate groups.
Compare if ATP or glucose can leave the cell.
ATP can’t pass out of a cell so the cell always has an immediate supply of energy because it has no carrier proteins to bond to. However, glucose can leave the cell through channel and carrier proteins so it doesn’t supply the cell with an immediate supply.
