Explain How a pentose phosphate pathway can respond to a cells need for ATP,NADPH and ribose-5-phosphate?
Answers
Answer:
Every living organism has a set of blueprints in each of their cells called DNA and RNA. These blueprints are essential for life because they are the information on how to build the protein structures that make up each and everyone of us. Given the structural and functional importance of DNA and RNA for all living things, there are many layers of quality control to help avoid and correct mistakes when DNA and RNA are initially made.
While the products of glycolysis are sent through the rest of cellular respiration to produce energy , there is also an alternative branch off glycolysis to produce the sugars that make up DNA and RNA. This pathway, called the Pentose Phosphate Pathway, is special because no energy in the form of ATP, or adenosine triphosphate, is produced or used up in this pathway.
How does it happen?
Similarly to some of the processes in cellular respiration, the molecules that go through the pentose phosphate pathway are mostly made of carbon. The easiest way to understand this pathway is to follow the carbon.
The breakdown of the simple sugar, glucose, in glycolysis provides the first 6-carbon molecule required for the pentose phosphate pathway. During the first step of glycolysis, glucose is transformed by the addition of a phosphate group, generating glucose-6-phosphate, another 6-carbon molecule. The pentose phosphate pathway can use any available molecules of glucose-6-phosphate, whether they are produced by glycolysis or other methods.