Converts large number of diverse substances to common intermediates 2. Further metabolism through an oxidative pathway yields few end products 3. Metabolic pathways are irreversible a. If two metabolites are metabolically interconvertible, the pathway from the first to the second must differ from the pathway from the second back to the first c. Independent interconversion routes allows independent control of the rates of the two processes 2.
Every metabolic pathway has a first committed step a.
All metabolic pathways are regulated a. Most metabolic pathways are controlled by regulating the enzymes that catalyze the first committed steps 4. Organic Reaction Mechanisms A. Chemical Logic 1. Involve transfer of an electrophilic group from one nucleophile to another 2. Acyl group transfer fro one nucleophile to another involves addition of nucleophile to acyl carbonyl carbon atom to form tetrahedral intermediate 3.