BIOC 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Uridine Diphosphate Glucose, Uridine Triphosphate, Glycogen Synthase
Document Summary
Glycogen is a polymer of glucose molecules: used to store glucose. Why we need to store glucose: glycogen can be rapidly broken down during times of high activity, the brain uses almost exclusively glucose (it always needs some glucose, glucose (from glycogen) can generate atp without o2. Liver = like your mom stores glucose for the body"s entire use it will break down glycogen and put it into the blood stream to maintain blood glucose levels. Muscle = like your little brother stores glucose for it"s own needs for your oh smurf moments (fight or flight) Glycogen is stored as large granules in the cytosol (called glycogen rosettes) Allows you to have many ends to build or break down glycogen quickly. The -1,4 linkage results in a slight curve of polymer (see slide) compared to -1,4 linkages in cellulose. Need to do that to make the -1,4 linkage to polymerize the glycogen: catalyzed by udp-glucose pyrophosphorylase.
