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- Cellular metabolism refers to all the
- enzyme-regulated activities that occur in a cell.
- Through building-up, or anabolic, activities
- such as photosynthesis, energy is stored in
- nutrient molecules. Before this nutrient energy
- can be utilized, the cell must engage in
- breaking-down, or catabolic, activities that
- transfer the energy from nutrient molecules to
- adenosine triphosphate (ATP), molecules from
- which the cell can draw energy directly when doing
- work. The catabolic activities that produce ATP
- occur in numerous steps, each catalyzed by its own
- enzyme or set of enzymes. The end result of
- catabolic reactions includes: 1) the degradation
- of the original energy-containing nutrient molecule
- to carbon dioxide and water and 2) the incorporation of
- the energy released during the degradation into ATP
- through phosphorylation, a reaction in which ATP
- is synthesized from adenosine diphosphate (ADP)
- and inorganic phosphate. The catabolic reactions
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