New Media Medicine - View Single Post - Why is GTP used in cell signalling rather than ATP?

Prolific · 31-03-2008, 07:25 AM

Might be wrong but I read something a while ago which said that it was probably just evolutionary chance that ATP ended up being the principal energy coenzyme not another phosphorylated nucleotide like GTP or UTP. As far as I know the free energy that can be released from the bonds is basically the same. ATP and GTP synthesis are pretty interlinked though. For example in purine nucleotide synthesis, one molecule of ATP is needed to make a GMP and vice versa one molecule of GTP is needed to make one molecular of AMP.

Might be totally wrong about all of that since its been 18 months since I last did it and its 3:40am :S

31-03-2008, 07:25 AM	#2 (permalink)
Prolific Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Brighton Posts: 232	Might be wrong but I read something a while ago which said that it was probably just evolutionary chance that ATP ended up being the principal energy coenzyme not another phosphorylated nucleotide like GTP or UTP. As far as I know the free energy that can be released from the bonds is basically the same. ATP and GTP synthesis are pretty interlinked though. For example in purine nucleotide synthesis, one molecule of ATP is needed to make a GMP and vice versa one molecule of GTP is needed to make one molecular of AMP. Might be totally wrong about all of that since its been 18 months since I last did it and its 3:40am :S __________________ BSMS September 2008 2(i) BSc Molecular Medicine, University of Sussex 08'