* Bioenergetics & Thermodynamics
* Noteworthy Differences between “Lab Thermodynamics” and Bioenergetics in Living Systems
* Three students are reviewing a chart in their biochemistry text showing that many of the individual steps of glycolysis have a positive **ΔG°’** value.
* **Discuss the accuracy and merits of their competing explanations for why glycolysis still occurs readily in living systems:**
* Student A) Enzymes are the solution! Enzymes drastically lower the free energy change to be more negative.
* Student B) Food energy is the solution! Many biochemical reactions are unfavorable and that is why we must eat—to provide external energy to drive these reactions and maintain disequilibrium.
* Student C) Reaction coupling is the solution! While some reactions are unfavorable, they are coupled to reactions that are favorable.
* Several steps in glycolysis have positive ΔG’s, but the pathway still occurs spontaneously in cells.
* The first student hypothesizes that this is due to enzymes lowering the free energy of the equation.
* However, the ΔG listed for the steps of glycolysis take the enzymes into account, and so the enzymes themselves cannot account for the spontaneity of the overall pathway.
* Student B thinks that food energy is the solution, and that eating will give the energy needed to drive glycolysis.
* However, glycolysis is the process through which the body breaks down glucose, which is how the body gains energy from starchy food, so eating more wouldn’t drive the reaction forward.
* It would instead put more glucose into the system, requiring even more glycolysis action.
* **Student C is correct**, reaction coupling will drive the entire pathway forward.
* Some steps in glycolysis have positive ΔG’s, but other steps have very negative ΔG’s.
* Those steps require the products of previous steps.
* Because the reactions are linked by the product of one reaction providing the substrates of the following reactions, the very negative ΔG’s will pull the pathway forward, even though the positive ΔG’s are earlier in the pathway than the very negative ΔG’s