{"id":149746,"date":"2022-11-08T23:22:53","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T05:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/scientists-may-have-finally-figured-out-why-atp-powers-all-life-on-earth"},"modified":"2022-11-08T23:22:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T05:22:53","slug":"scientists-may-have-finally-figured-out-why-atp-powers-all-life-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/scientists-may-have-finally-figured-out-why-atp-powers-all-life-on-earth","title":{"rendered":"Scientists May Have Finally Figured Out Why ATP Powers All Life on Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-may-have-finally-figured-out-why-atp-powers-all-life-on-earth2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosbiology\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pbio.3001437\" class=\"\">new study published in the journal <em>PLOS Biology<\/em><\/a>, a team of researchers at University College London posit that it became the \u201cuniversal currency of life\u201d by way of a little thing known as phosphorylation.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, phosphorylation is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sigmaaldrich.com\/US\/en\/technical-documents\/technical-article\/protein-biology\/protein-labeling-and-modification\/phosphorylation\" class=\"\">process by which ATP is created<\/a>. A phosphate molecule is added to another chemical called ADP, and vo\u00edla: ATP is born. That same phosphate, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/every-life-form-on-earth-uses-the-same-chemical-for-energy-this-could-explain-why\" class=\"\">as <em>ScienceAlert<\/em> explains<\/a>, is then used for another process called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/topics\/earth-and-planetary-sciences\/hydrolysis#:~:text=Hydrolysis%20involves%20the%20reaction%20of, by%20the%20addition%20of%20water.\" class=\"\">hydrolysis<\/a>, or the reaction of an organic chemical with water that breaks down ATP for use \u2014 and that connection with water may be where the secret to ATP\u2019s metabolic dominance lies.<\/p>\n<p>Well, partly. As the scientists discovered in their research, ATP couldn\u2019t rise to the top alone. It needed both water and another phosphorylating molecule, called AcP, to do it. And in fact, it\u2019s likely that ATP actually knocked out AcP as top energy-giving dog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a new study published in the journal PLOS Biology, a team of researchers at University College London posit that it became the \u201cuniversal currency of life\u201d by way of a little thing known as phosphorylation. Basically, phosphorylation is the process by which ATP is created. A phosphate molecule is added to another chemical called [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1497],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}