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Guanosine triphosphate

 

 
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Guanosine triphosphate
 
 
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Guanosine-5'-triphosphate (GTP) is a purine
Purine

Purine is a heterocyclic compound aromatic organic compound, consisting of a pyrimidine ring fused to an imidazole ring. Purines, including substituted purines and their tautomers, are the most widely distributed kind of nitrogen-containing heterocycle in nature....
 nucleotide
Nucleotide

Nucleotides are molecules that comprise the structural units of RNA and DNA. Additionally, nucleotides play central roles in metabolism. In that capacity, they serve as sources of chemical energy , participate in cell signaling , and are incorporated into important cofactors of enzymatic reactions ....
. One role is as substrate for the synthesis of RNA
RNA

Ribonucleic acid is a type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nucleobase, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate....
 during transcription
Transcription (genetics)

Transcription is the synthesis of RNA under the direction of DNA. RNA synthesis, or transcription, is the process of transcribing DNA nucleotide sequence information into RNA sequence information....
. Its structure is similar to that of the guanine
Guanine

Guanine is one of the five main nucleobases found in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, the others being adenine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil. In DNA, guanine is paired with cytosine....
 nucleoside, the only difference being that there are three phosphate
Phosphate

A phosphate, an inorganic chemical, is a Salt of phosphoric acid. Inorganic phosphates are mining to obtain phosphorus for use in agriculture and industry....
 groups attached to the 5' carbon.

It also has the role of a source of energy or an activator of substrates in metabolic reactions, like that of ATP
Adenosine triphosphate

This article is about the chemical used by cells as an energy carrier. For other uses, see ATP .Adenosine-5'-triphosphate is a multifunctional nucleotide, and plays an important role in cell biology as a coenzyme that is the "molecule unit of currency" of intracellular energy transfer....
, but more specific.






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Guanosine-5'-triphosphate (GTP) is a purine
Purine

Purine is a heterocyclic compound aromatic organic compound, consisting of a pyrimidine ring fused to an imidazole ring. Purines, including substituted purines and their tautomers, are the most widely distributed kind of nitrogen-containing heterocycle in nature....
 nucleotide
Nucleotide

Nucleotides are molecules that comprise the structural units of RNA and DNA. Additionally, nucleotides play central roles in metabolism. In that capacity, they serve as sources of chemical energy , participate in cell signaling , and are incorporated into important cofactors of enzymatic reactions ....
. One role is as substrate for the synthesis of RNA
RNA

Ribonucleic acid is a type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nucleobase, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate....
 during transcription
Transcription (genetics)

Transcription is the synthesis of RNA under the direction of DNA. RNA synthesis, or transcription, is the process of transcribing DNA nucleotide sequence information into RNA sequence information....
. Its structure is similar to that of the guanine
Guanine

Guanine is one of the five main nucleobases found in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, the others being adenine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil. In DNA, guanine is paired with cytosine....
 nucleoside, the only difference being that there are three phosphate
Phosphate

A phosphate, an inorganic chemical, is a Salt of phosphoric acid. Inorganic phosphates are mining to obtain phosphorus for use in agriculture and industry....
 groups attached to the 5' carbon.

It also has the role of a source of energy or an activator of substrates in metabolic reactions, like that of ATP
Adenosine triphosphate

This article is about the chemical used by cells as an energy carrier. For other uses, see ATP .Adenosine-5'-triphosphate is a multifunctional nucleotide, and plays an important role in cell biology as a coenzyme that is the "molecule unit of currency" of intracellular energy transfer....
, but more specific. It is used as a source of energy for protein synthesis
Protein biosynthesis

Protein synthesis is the process in which cell build proteins. The term is sometimes used to refer only to protein translation but more often it refers to a multi-step process, beginning with amino acid synthesis and transcription which are then used for translation ....
.

GTP is essential to signal transduction
Signal transduction

In biology, 'signal transduction' refers to any process by which a cell converts one kind of signal or stimulus into another. Most processes of signal transduction involve ordered sequences of biochemistry chemical reaction inside the cell, which are carried out by enzymes, activated by Second messenger systems, resulting in a signal tran...
, particularly with G-proteins, in second-messenger mechanisms where it is converted to GDP
Guanosine diphosphate

Guanosine diphosphate, abbreviated GDP, is a nucleotide. It is an ester of pyrophosphoric acid with the nucleoside guanosine. GDP consists of the pyrophosphate Functional group, the pentose sugar ribose, and the nucleobase guanine....
 (guanosine diphosphate) through the action of GTPase
GTPase

GTPases are a large family of hydrolase enzymes that can bind and hydrolysis Guanosine triphosphate. The GTP binding and hydrolysis takes place in the highly Conservation G domain common to all GTPases....
s.

Energy transfer

GTP is involved in energy transfer within the cell. For instance, a GTP molecule is generated by one of the enzymes in the citric acid cycle
Citric acid cycle

The citric acid cycle ? also known as the tricarboxylic acid cycle ; the Krebs cycle; or, more rarely, the Szent-Gy?rgyi-Krebs cycle) ? is a series of enzyme-catalysed chemical reactions of central importance in all living cell s that use oxygen as part of cellular respiration....
. This is tantamount to the generation of one molecule of ATP
Adenosine triphosphate

This article is about the chemical used by cells as an energy carrier. For other uses, see ATP .Adenosine-5'-triphosphate is a multifunctional nucleotide, and plays an important role in cell biology as a coenzyme that is the "molecule unit of currency" of intracellular energy transfer....
, since GTP is readily converted to ATP.

cGTP

Cyclic guanosine triphosphate (cGTP) helps cyclic adenosine monophosphate
Cyclic adenosine monophosphate

Cyclic adenosine monophosphate is a second messenger that is important in many biological processes. cAMP is derived from adenosine triphosphate and used for intracellular signal transduction in many different organisms....
 (cAMP) activate cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channel
Cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channel

A cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channel is any ion channel that opens in the presence of cyclic nucleotides....
s in the olfactory system
Olfactory system

The olfactory system is the sensory system used for olfaction, or the sense of smell. Most mammals and reptiles have two distinct parts to their olfactory system: a main olfactory system and an accessory olfactory system....
 .

See also


GTP-gamma-S
GTPgammaS

GTPgammaS is nonhydrolyzable G-protein-activating analog of guanosine triphosphate . It has many physiological actions such as stimulation of guanine nucleotide-binding proteins, phosphoinositide hydrolysis, cyclic AMP accumulation, and activation of specific proto-oncogenes....