What Is Oxidative Phosphorylation?

Oxidative phosphorylation, a biochemical process, occurs in the mitochondrial inner membrane of eukaryotic cells or in the cytoplasm of prokaryotes. It is the coupling reaction between the energy released by the substance when it is oxidized in the body and the supply of ADP and inorganic phosphate to ATP through the respiratory chain.

Oxidative phosphorylation

The relationship between the oxygen consumption and the number of ATP produced and the calculation based on experiments

Oxidative phosphorylation refers to the energy released by the oxidative steps in the decomposition process of organic substances including sugars, lipids, amino acids, etc., and drives the process of ATP synthesis. in

The oxygen molecule is a strong oxidant and therefore an ideal end

The study of oxidative phosphorylation originated from Arthur Harden's 1906 report, which explained the important role of phosphates in cell fermentation, but only sugar phosphates were known to be related to this. However, in the early 1940s, the link between sugar oxidation and ATP production was firmly established by Herman Kalka, and in 1941, Fritz Albert Lipman confirmed that ATP was responsible for energy Play a central role in delivery. Later in 1949, Morris Friedkin and Albert Lenninger demonstrated that coenzyme NADH is involved in metabolic pathways such as the tricarboxylic acid cycle and ATP synthesis.

Twenty years later, the mechanism of ATP generation is still a mystery, and scientists are looking for the elusive "high-energy intermediate" that connects oxidation and phosphorylation. This problem was solved in Peter Mitchell's theory of chemical permeability, published in 1961. At first, this view was highly controversial, but over time, it gradually became accepted, and Mitchell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978. Subsequent research focused on the purification and description of the enzymes involved, with David Green and Efraim Lake making significant contributions to the study of complexes on the electron transport chain and ATP synthase respectively. The key steps in solving the ATP synthase mechanism were explained by the "binding allosteric" mechanism conceived by Paul Boyer in 1973, followed by his radical idea of spin catalysis in 1982. More recent work includes structural studies of oxidative phosphorylase by John Walker. Walker and Boyer were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997.