Glycolysis was one of the first metabolic pathways studied and is one of the best understood, in terms of the enzymes involved, their mechanisms of action, and the regulation of the pathway to meet the needs of the organism and the cell. Glycolysis is a 10-step pathway which converts glucose to 2 pyruvate molecules. This pathway is common to virtually all cells, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic. In eukaryotic cells, glycolysis takes place in the cytosol. This pathway can be thought of as comprising of three stages: 1) the conversion of glucose into fructose 1,6-bisphosphate, 2) the cleavage of the fructose 1,6-bisphosphate into two three-carbon fragments and 3) the oxidation of the three-carbon fragments to pyruvate (with an ATP and NADH harvest). The activity of the pathway is regulated at key steps to ensure that glucose consumption and energy production match the needs of the cell. The steps along the pathway each involve a change in the free energy of the products and reactants, and as long as the overall change in free energy is negative, the reaction continues forward, like water flowing down hill to its lowest energy point. The key steps in the regulation of glycolysis, or any pathway, are those that catalyze the rate-limiting, irreversible steps along the pathway. In glycolysis in mammals, the key regulatory enzyme is phosphofructokinase, which catalyzes the rate-limiting committed step. Phosphofructokinase is activated by AMP and inhibited by ATP, among other regulatory mechanisms. Thus, when ATP is low (and AMP is high), phosphofructokinase will be activated and generate more ATP. Similarly, when ATP is abundant, phosphofructokinase will be inhibited to prevent wasting glucose on making energy when it is not needed. BioVision has over 40 highly sensitive kits (both colorimetric and fluorometric) to analyze each of the byproducts of this very central pathway. These assays are rapid and simple, high throughput adaptable, compatible with numerous sample types and can be used for diverse purposes like cancer research, cell signaling and carbohydrate metabolism research, enzymatic reactions and the study of the study of the Glyoxalase system.
