Carbon
Carbon is a chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds, it belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Three isotopes occur 12C and 13C being stable, while 14C is a radionuclide, decaying with a half-life of about 5,730 years. Carbon is one of the few elements known since antiquity. Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen and oxygen. Carbon's abundance, its unique diversity of organic compounds, its unusual ability to form polymers at the temperatures encountered on Earth enables this element to serve as a common element of all known life, it is the second most abundant element in the human body by mass after oxygen. The atoms of carbon can bond together in different ways, termed allotropes of carbon; the best known are graphite and amorphous carbon. The physical properties of carbon vary with the allotropic form.
For example, graphite is opaque and black while diamond is transparent. Graphite is soft enough to form a streak on paper, while diamond is the hardest occurring material known. Graphite is a good electrical conductor. Under normal conditions, carbon nanotubes, graphene have the highest thermal conductivities of all known materials. All carbon allotropes are solids under normal conditions, with graphite being the most thermodynamically stable form at standard temperature and pressure, they are chemically resistant and require high temperature to react with oxygen. The most common oxidation state of carbon in inorganic compounds is +4, while +2 is found in carbon monoxide and transition metal carbonyl complexes; the largest sources of inorganic carbon are limestones and carbon dioxide, but significant quantities occur in organic deposits of coal, peat and methane clathrates. Carbon forms a vast number of compounds, more than any other element, with ten million compounds described to date, yet that number is but a fraction of the number of theoretically possible compounds under standard conditions.
For this reason, carbon has been referred to as the "king of the elements". The allotropes of carbon include graphite, one of the softest known substances, diamond, the hardest occurring substance, it bonds with other small atoms, including other carbon atoms, is capable of forming multiple stable covalent bonds with suitable multivalent atoms. Carbon is known to form ten million different compounds, a large majority of all chemical compounds. Carbon has the highest sublimation point of all elements. At atmospheric pressure it has no melting point, as its triple point is at 10.8±0.2 MPa and 4,600 ± 300 K, so it sublimes at about 3,900 K. Graphite is much more reactive than diamond at standard conditions, despite being more thermodynamically stable, as its delocalised pi system is much more vulnerable to attack. For example, graphite can be oxidised by hot concentrated nitric acid at standard conditions to mellitic acid, C66, which preserves the hexagonal units of graphite while breaking up the larger structure.
Carbon sublimes in a carbon arc, which has a temperature of about 5800 K. Thus, irrespective of its allotropic form, carbon remains solid at higher temperatures than the highest-melting-point metals such as tungsten or rhenium. Although thermodynamically prone to oxidation, carbon resists oxidation more than elements such as iron and copper, which are weaker reducing agents at room temperature. Carbon is the sixth element, with a ground-state electron configuration of 1s22s22p2, of which the four outer electrons are valence electrons, its first four ionisation energies, 1086.5, 2352.6, 4620.5 and 6222.7 kJ/mol, are much higher than those of the heavier group-14 elements. The electronegativity of carbon is 2.5 higher than the heavier group-14 elements, but close to most of the nearby nonmetals, as well as some of the second- and third-row transition metals. Carbon's covalent radii are taken as 77.2 pm, 66.7 pm and 60.3 pm, although these may vary depending on coordination number and what the carbon is bonded to.
In general, covalent radius decreases with higher bond order. Carbon compounds form the basis of all known life on Earth, the carbon–nitrogen cycle provides some of the energy produced by the Sun and other stars. Although it forms an extraordinary variety of compounds, most forms of carbon are comparatively unreactive under normal conditions. At standard temperature and pressure, it resists all but the strongest oxidizers, it does not react with hydrochloric acid, chlorine or any alkalis. At elevated temperatures, carbon reacts with oxygen to form carbon oxides and will rob oxygen from metal oxides to leave the elemental metal; this exothermic reaction is used in the iron and steel industry to smelt iron and to control the carbon content of steel: Fe3O4 + 4 C → 3 Fe + 4 COCarbon monoxide can be recycled to smelt more iron: Fe3O4 + 4 CO → 3 Fe + 4 CO2with sulfur to form carbon disulfide and with steam in the coal-gas reaction: C + H2O → CO + H2. Carbon combines with some metals at high temperatures to form metallic carbides, such as the iron carbide cementite in steel and tungsten carbide used as an abrasive and for making hard tips for cutting tools.
The system of carbon allotropes spans a range of extremes: Atomic carbon is a ver
Red blood cell
Red blood cells known as RBCs, red cells, red blood corpuscles, erythroid cells or erythrocytes, are the most common type of blood cell and the vertebrate's principal means of delivering oxygen to the body tissues—via blood flow through the circulatory system. RBCs take up oxygen in the lungs, or gills of fish, release it into tissues while squeezing through the body's capillaries; the cytoplasm of erythrocytes is rich in hemoglobin, an iron-containing biomolecule that can bind oxygen and is responsible for the red color of the cells and the blood. The cell membrane is composed of proteins and lipids, this structure provides properties essential for physiological cell function such as deformability and stability while traversing the circulatory system and the capillary network. In humans, mature red blood cells are oval biconcave disks, they lack most organelles, in order to accommodate maximum space for hemoglobin. 2.4 million new erythrocytes are produced per second in human adults. The cells develop in the bone marrow and circulate for about 100–120 days in the body before their components are recycled by macrophages.
Each circulation takes about 60 seconds. A quarter of the cells in the human body are red blood cells. Nearly half of the blood's volume is red blood cells. Packed red blood cells are red blood cells that have been donated and stored in a blood bank for blood transfusion. All vertebrates, including all mammals and humans, have red blood cells. Red blood cells are cells present in blood; the only known vertebrates without red blood cells are the crocodile icefish. While they no longer use hemoglobin, remnants of hemoglobin genes can be found in their genome. Vertebrate red blood cells consist of hemoglobin, a complex metalloprotein containing heme groups whose iron atoms temporarily bind to oxygen molecules in the lungs or gills and release them throughout the body. Oxygen can diffuse through the red blood cell's cell membrane. Hemoglobin in the red blood cells carries some of the waste product carbon dioxide back from the tissues. Myoglobin, a compound related to hemoglobin, acts to store oxygen in muscle cells.
The color of red blood cells is due to the heme group of hemoglobin. The blood plasma alone is straw-colored, but the red blood cells change color depending on the state of the hemoglobin: when combined with oxygen the resulting oxyhemoglobin is scarlet, when oxygen has been released the resulting deoxyhemoglobin is of a dark red burgundy color. However, blood can appear bluish when seen through skin. Pulse oximetry takes advantage of the hemoglobin color change to directly measure the arterial blood oxygen saturation using colorimetric techniques. Hemoglobin has a high affinity for carbon monoxide, forming carboxyhemoglobin, a bright red in color. Flushed, confused patients with a saturation reading of 100% on pulse oximetry are sometimes found to be suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. Having oxygen-carrying proteins inside specialized cells was an important step in the evolution of vertebrates as it allows for less viscous blood, higher concentrations of oxygen, better diffusion of oxygen from the blood to the tissues.
The size of red blood cells varies among vertebrate species. The red blood cells of mammals are shaped as biconcave disks: flattened and depressed in the center, with a dumbbell-shaped cross section, a torus-shaped rim on the edge of the disk; this shape allows for a high surface-area-to-volume ratio to facilitate diffusion of gases. However, there are some exceptions concerning shape in the artiodactyl order, which displays a wide variety of bizarre red blood cell morphologies: small and ovaloid cells in llamas and camels, tiny spherical cells in mouse deer, cells which assume fusiform, lanceolate and irregularly polygonal and other angular forms in red deer and wapiti. Members of this order have evolved a mode of red blood cell development different from the mammalian norm. Overall, mammalian red blood cells are remarkably flexible and deformable so as to squeeze through tiny capillaries, as well as to maximize their apposing surface by assuming a cigar shape, where they efficiently release their oxygen load.
Red blood cells in mammals are unique amongst vertebrates. Red blood cells of mammals cells have nuclei during early phases of erythropoiesis, but extrude them during development as they mature; the red blood cells without nuclei, called reticulocytes, subsequently lose all other cellular organelles such as their mitochondria, Golgi apparatus and endoplasmic reticulum. The spleen acts as a reservoir of red blood cells. In some other mammals such as dogs and horses, the spl
Nucleotide
Nucleotides are organic molecules that serve as the monomer units for forming the nucleic acid polymers deoxyribonucleic acid and ribonucleic acid, both of which are essential biomolecules within all life-forms on Earth. Nucleotides are the building blocks of nucleic acids. A nucleoside is a 5-carbon sugar, thus a nucleoside plus a phosphate group yields a nucleotide. Nucleotides play a central role in metabolism at a fundamental, cellular level, they carry packets of chemical energy—in the form of the nucleoside triphosphates Adenosine triphosphate, Guanosine triphosphate, Cytidine triphosphate and Uridine triphosphate —throughout the cell to the many cellular functions that demand energy, which include: synthesizing amino acids and cell membranes and parts, moving the cell and moving cell parts, dividing the cell, etc. In addition, nucleotides participate in cell signaling, are incorporated into important cofactors of enzymatic reactions. In experimental biochemistry, nucleotides can be radiolabeled with radionuclides to yield radionucleotides.
A nucleotide is composed of three distinctive chemical sub-units: a five-carbon sugar molecule, a nitrogenous base—which two together are called a nucleoside—and one phosphate group. With all three joined, a nucleotide is termed a "nucleoside monophosphate"; the chemistry sources ACS Style Guide and IUPAC Gold Book prescribe that a nucleotide should contain only one phosphate group, but common usage in molecular biology textbooks extends the definition to include molecules with two, or with three, phosphates. Thus, the terms "nucleoside diphosphate" or "nucleoside triphosphate" may indicate nucleotides. Nucleotides contain either a purine or a pyrimidine base—i.e. The nitrogenous base molecule known as a nucleobase—and are termed ribonucleotides if the sugar is ribose, or deoxyribonucleotides if the sugar is deoxyribose. Individual phosphate molecules repetitively connect the sugar-ring molecules in two adjacent nucleotide monomers, thereby connecting the nucleotide monomers of a nucleic acid end-to-end into a long chain.
These chain-joins of sugar and phosphate molecules create a'backbone' strand for a single- or double helix. In any one strand, the chemical orientation of the chain-joins runs from the 5'-end to the 3'-end —referring to the five carbon sites on sugar molecules in adjacent nucleotides. In a double helix, the two strands are oriented in opposite directions, which permits base pairing and complementarity between the base-pairs, all, essential for replicating or transcribing the encoded information found in DNA. Unlike in nucleic acid nucleotides, singular cyclic nucleotides are formed when the phosphate group is bound twice to the same sugar molecule, i.e. at the corners of the sugar hydroxyl groups. These individual nucleotides function in cell metabolism rather than the nucleic acid structures of long-chain molecules. Nucleic acids are polymeric macromolecules assembled from nucleotides, the monomer-units of nucleic acids; the purine bases adenine and guanine and pyrimidine base cytosine occur in both DNA and RNA, while the pyrimidine bases thymine and uracil in just one.
Adenine forms a base pair with thymine with two hydrogen bonds, while guanine pairs with cytosine with three hydrogen bonds. Nucleotides can be synthesized by a variety of means both in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, protecting groups may be used during laboratory production of nucleotides. A purified nucleoside is protected to create a phosphoramidite, which can be used to obtain analogues not found in nature and/or to synthesize an oligonucleotide. In vivo, nucleotides can be recycled through salvage pathways; the components used in de novo nucleotide synthesis are derived from biosynthetic precursors of carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism, from ammonia and carbon dioxide. The liver is the major organ of de novo synthesis of all four nucleotides. De novo synthesis of pyrimidines and purines follows two different pathways. Pyrimidines are synthesized first from aspartate and carbamoyl-phosphate in the cytoplasm to the common precursor ring structure orotic acid, onto which a phosphorylated ribosyl unit is covalently linked.
Purines, are first synthesized from the sugar template onto which the ring synthesis occurs. For reference, the syntheses of the purine and pyrimidine nucleotides are carried out by several enzymes in the cytoplasm of the cell, not within a specific organelle. Nucleotides undergo breakdown such that useful parts can be reused in synthesis reactions to create new nucleotides; the synthesis of the pyrimidines CTP and UTP occurs in the cytoplasm and starts with the formation of carbamoyl phosphate from glutamine and CO2. Next, aspartate carbamoyltransferase catalyzes a condensation reaction between aspartate and carbamoyl phosphate to form carbamoyl aspartic acid, cyclized into 4,5-dihydroorotic acid by dihydroorotase; the latter is converted to orotate by dihydroorotate oxidase. The net reaction is: -Dihydroorotate + O2 → Orotate + H2O2Orotate is covalently linked with a phosphorylated ribosyl unit; the covalent linkage between the ribose and pyrimidine occurs at position C1 of the ribose unit, which contains a pyrophosphate, N1 of the pyrimidine ring.
Orotate phosphoribosyltransferase catalyzes the net reaction yielding orotidine monophosphate: Or
Glycolysis
Glycolysis is the metabolic pathway that converts glucose C6H12O6, into pyruvate, CH3COCOO− + H+. The free energy released in this process is used to form the high-energy molecules ATP and NADH. Glycolysis is a sequence of ten enzyme-catalyzed reactions. Most monosaccharides, such as fructose and galactose, can be converted to one of these intermediates; the intermediates may be directly useful. For example, the intermediate dihydroxyacetone phosphate is a source of the glycerol that combines with fatty acids to form fat. Glycolysis is an oxygen-independent metabolic pathway; the wide occurrence of glycolysis indicates. Indeed, the reactions that constitute glycolysis and its parallel pathway, the pentose phosphate pathway, occur metal-catalyzed under the oxygen-free conditions of the Archean oceans in the absence of enzymes. In most organisms, glycolysis occurs in the cytosol; the most common type of glycolysis is the Embden–Meyerhof–Parnas, discovered by Gustav Embden, Otto Meyerhof, Jakub Karol Parnas.
Glycolysis refers to other pathways, such as the Entner–Doudoroff pathway and various heterofermentative and homofermentative pathways. However, the discussion here will be limited to the Embden–Meyerhof–Parnas pathway; the glycolysis pathway can be separated into two phases: The Preparatory/Investment Phase – wherein ATP is consumed. The Pay Off Phase – wherein ATP is produced; the overall reaction of glycolysis is: The use of symbols in this equation makes it appear unbalanced with respect to oxygen atoms, hydrogen atoms, charges. Atom balance is maintained by the two phosphate groups: Each exists in the form of a hydrogen phosphate anion, dissociating to contribute 2 H+ overall Each liberates an oxygen atom when it binds to an ADP molecule, contributing 2 O overallCharges are balanced by the difference between ADP and ATP. In the cellular environment, all three hydroxyl groups of ADP dissociate into −O− and H+, giving ADP3−, this ion tends to exist in an ionic bond with Mg2+, giving ADPMg−.
ATP behaves identically except that it has four hydroxyl groups, giving ATPMg2−. When these differences along with the true charges on the two phosphate groups are considered together, the net charges of −4 on each side are balanced. For simple fermentations, the metabolism of one molecule of glucose to two molecules of pyruvate has a net yield of two molecules of ATP. Most cells will carry out further reactions to'repay' the used NAD+ and produce a final product of ethanol or lactic acid. Many bacteria use inorganic compounds as hydrogen acceptors to regenerate the NAD+. Cells performing aerobic respiration synthesize much more ATP, but not as part of glycolysis; these further aerobic reactions use pyruvate and NADH + H+ from glycolysis. Eukaryotic aerobic respiration produces 34 additional molecules of ATP for each glucose molecule, however most of these are produced by a vastly different mechanism to the substrate-level phosphorylation in glycolysis; the lower-energy production, per glucose, of anaerobic respiration relative to aerobic respiration, results in greater flux through the pathway under hypoxic conditions, unless alternative sources of anaerobically oxidizable substrates, such as fatty acids, are found.
The pathway of glycolysis as it is known today took 100 years to discover. The combined results of many smaller experiments were required in order to understand the pathway as a whole; the first steps in understanding glycolysis began in the nineteenth century with the wine industry. For economic reasons, the French wine industry sought to investigate why wine sometime turned distasteful, instead of fermenting into alcohol. French scientist Louis Pasteur researched this issue during the 1850s, the results of his experiments began the long road to elucidating the pathway of glycolysis, his experiments showed. While Pasteur's experiments were groundbreaking, insight into the component steps of glycolysis were provided by the non-cellular fermentation experiments of Eduard Buchner during the 1890s. Buchner demonstrated that the conversion of glucose to ethanol was possible using a non-living extract of yeast; this experiment not only revolutionized biochemistry, but allowed scientists to analyze this pathway in a more controlled lab setting.
In a series of experiments, scientists Arthur Harden and William Young discovered more pieces of glycolysis. They discovered the regulatory effects of ATP on glucose consumption during alcohol fermentation, they shed light on the role of one compound as a glycolysis intermediate: fructose 1,6-bisphosphate. The elucidation of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate was accomplished by measuring CO2 levels when yeast juice was incubated with glucose. CO2 production increased then slowed down. Harden and Young noted that this process would restart if an inorganic phosphate was added to the mixture. Harden and Young deduced that this process produced organic phosphate esters, further experiments allowed them to extract fructose diphosphate. Arthur Harden and William Young along with Nick Sheppard determined, in a second experiment, that a heat-sensitive high-molecular-weight subcellular fraction and a heat-insensitive low-molecular-weight cytoplasm fraction are required together for fermenta
Redox
Redox is a chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of atoms are changed. Any such reaction involves both a reduction process and a complementary oxidation process, two key concepts involved with electron transfer processes. Redox reactions include all chemical reactions; the chemical species from which the electron is stripped is said to have been oxidized, while the chemical species to which the electron is added is said to have been reduced. It can be explained in simple terms: Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in oxidation state by a molecule, atom, or ion. Reduction is a decrease in oxidation state by a molecule, atom, or ion; as an example, during the combustion of wood, oxygen from the air is reduced, gaining electrons from carbon, oxidized. Although oxidation reactions are associated with the formation of oxides from oxygen molecules, oxygen is not included in such reactions, as other chemical species can serve the same function; the reaction can occur slowly, as with the formation of rust, or more in the case of fire.
There are simple redox processes, such as the oxidation of carbon to yield carbon dioxide or the reduction of carbon by hydrogen to yield methane, more complex processes such as the oxidation of glucose in the human body. "Redox" is a portmanteau of the words "reduction" and "oxidation". The word oxidation implied reaction with oxygen to form an oxide, since dioxygen was the first recognized oxidizing agent; the term was expanded to encompass oxygen-like substances that accomplished parallel chemical reactions. The meaning was generalized to include all processes involving loss of electrons; the word reduction referred to the loss in weight upon heating a metallic ore such as a metal oxide to extract the metal. In other words, ore was "reduced" to metal. Antoine Lavoisier showed. Scientists realized that the metal atom gains electrons in this process; the meaning of reduction became generalized to include all processes involving a gain of electrons. Though "reduction" seems counter-intuitive when speaking of the gain of electrons, it might help to think of reduction as the loss of oxygen, its historical meaning.
Since electrons are negatively charged, it is helpful to think of this as reduction in electrical charge. The electrochemist John Bockris has used the words electronation and deelectronation to describe reduction and oxidation processes when they occur at electrodes; these words are analogous to protonation and deprotonation, but they have not been adopted by chemists worldwide. The term "hydrogenation" could be used instead of reduction, since hydrogen is the reducing agent in a large number of reactions in organic chemistry and biochemistry. But, unlike oxidation, generalized beyond its root element, hydrogenation has maintained its specific connection to reactions that add hydrogen to another substance; the word "redox" was first used in 1928. The processes of oxidation and reduction occur and cannot happen independently of one another, similar to the acid–base reaction; the oxidation alone and the reduction alone are each called a half-reaction, because two half-reactions always occur together to form a whole reaction.
When writing half-reactions, the gained or lost electrons are included explicitly in order that the half-reaction be balanced with respect to electric charge. Though sufficient for many purposes, these general descriptions are not correct. Although oxidation and reduction properly refer to a change in oxidation state — the actual transfer of electrons may never occur; the oxidation state of an atom is the fictitious charge that an atom would have if all bonds between atoms of different elements were 100% ionic. Thus, oxidation is best defined as an increase in oxidation state, reduction as a decrease in oxidation state. In practice, the transfer of electrons will always cause a change in oxidation state, but there are many reactions that are classed as "redox" though no electron transfer occurs. In redox processes, the reductant transfers electrons to the oxidant. Thus, in the reaction, the reductant or reducing agent loses electrons and is oxidized, the oxidant or oxidizing agent gains electrons and is reduced.
The pair of an oxidizing and reducing agent that are involved in a particular reaction is called a redox pair. A redox couple is a reducing species and its corresponding oxidizing form, e.g. Fe2+/Fe3+ Substances that have the ability to oxidize other substances are said to be oxidative or oxidizing and are known as oxidizing agents, oxidants, or oxidizers; that is, the oxidant removes electrons from another substance, is thus itself reduced. And, because it "accepts" electrons, the oxidizing agent is called an electron acceptor. Oxygen is the quintessential oxidizer. Oxidants are chemical substances with elements in high oxidation states, or else electronegative elements that can gain extra electrons by oxidizing another substance. Substances that have the ability to reduce other substances are said to be reductive or reducing and are known as
Phosphogluconate dehydrogenase
6-Phosphogluconate dehydrogenase is an enzyme in the pentose phosphate pathway. It forms ribulose 5-phosphate from 6-phosphogluconate, it is an oxidative carboxylase that catalyses the decarboxylating reduction of 6-phosphogluconate into ribulose 5-phosphate in the presence of NADP. This reaction is a component of pentose phosphate pathways. Prokaryotic and eukaryotic 6PGD are proteins of about 470 amino acids whose sequences are conserved; the protein is a homodimer in which the monomers act independently: each contains a large alpha-helical domain and a smaller beta-alpha-beta domain, containing a mixed parallel and anti-parallel 6-stranded beta sheet. NADP is bound in a cleft in the substrate binding in an adjacent pocket. Mutations within the gene coding this enzyme result in 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase deficiency, an autosomal hereditary disease affecting the red blood cells. 6PGD is involved in cancer cell metabolism. Parietin, a 6PGD inhibitor
Anabolism
Anabolism is the set of metabolic pathways that construct molecules from smaller units. These reactions require energy, known as an endergonic process. Anabolism is the building-up aspect of metabolism. Anabolism is synonymous with biosynthesis. Polymerization, an anabolic pathway used to build macromolecules such as nucleic acids and polysaccharides, uses condensation reactions to join monomers. Macromolecules are created from smaller molecules using cofactors. Anabolism is powered by catabolism, where large molecules are broken down into smaller parts and used up in cellular respiration. Many anabolic processes are powered by the cleavage of adenosine triphosphate. Anabolism involves reduction and decreases entropy, making it unfavorable without energy input; the starting materials, called the precursor molecules, are joined together using the chemical energy made available from hydrolyzing ATP, reducing the cofactors NAD+, NADP+, FAD, or performing other favorable side reactions. It can be driven by entropy without energy input, in cases like the formation of the phospholipid bilayer of a cell, where hydrophobic interactions aggregate the molecules.
The reducing agents NADH, NADPH, FADH2, as well as metal ions, act as cofactors at various steps in anabolic pathways. NADH, NADPH, FADH2 act as electron carriers, while charged metal ions within enzymes stabilize charged functional groups on substrates. Substrates for anabolism are intermediates taken from catabolic pathways during periods of high energy charge in the cell. Anabolic processes build tissues; these processes produce growth and differentiation of cells and increase in body size, a process that involves synthesis of complex molecules. Examples of anabolic processes include the growth and mineralization of bone and increases in muscle mass. Endocrinologists have traditionally classified hormones as anabolic or catabolic, depending on which part of metabolism they stimulate; the classic anabolic hormones are the anabolic steroids, which stimulate protein synthesis and muscle growth, insulin. Photosynthetic carbohydrate synthesis in plants and certain bacteria is an anabolic process that produces glucose, starch and proteins from CO2.
It uses the energy produced from the light-driven reactions of photosynthesis, creates the precursors to these large molecules via carbon assimilation in the photosynthetic carbon reduction cycle, a.k.a. the Calvin cycle. All amino acids are formed from intermediates in the catabolic processes of glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, or the pentose phosphate pathway. From glycolysis, glucose 6-phosphate is a precursor for histidine. From the citric acid cycle, α-ketoglutarate is converted into glutamate and subsequently glutamine and arginine. During periods of high blood sugar, glucose 6-phosphate from glycolysis is diverted to the glycogen-storing pathway, it is changed to glucose-1-phosphate by phosphoglucomutase and to UDP-glucose by UTP--glucose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase. Glycogen synthase adds this UDP-glucose to a glycogen chain. Glucagon is traditionally a catabolic hormone, but stimulates the anabolic process of gluconeogenesis by the liver, to a lesser extent the kidney cortex and intestines, during starvation to prevent low blood sugar.
It is the process of converting pyruvate into glucose. Pyruvate can come from the breakdown of glucose, amino acids, or glycerol; the gluconeogenesis pathway has many reversible enzymatic processes in common with glycolysis, but it is not the process of glycolysis in reverse. It uses different irreversible enzymes to ensure the overall pathway runs in one direction only. Anabolism operates with separate enzymes from catalysis, which undergo irreversible steps at some point in their pathways; this allows the cell to regulate the rate of production and prevent an infinite loop known as a futile cycle, from forming with catabolism. The balance between anabolism and catabolism is sensitive to ADP and ATP, otherwise known as the energy charge of the cell. High amounts of ATP cause cells to favor the anabolic pathway and slow catabolic activity, while excess ADP slows anabolism and favors catabolism; these pathways are regulated by circadian rhythms, with processes such as glycolysis fluctuating to match an animal's normal periods of activity throughout the day.
The word anabolism is from New Latin, which got the roots from Greek: ἁνά, "upward" and βάλλειν, "to throw"