The Role of Compartmentation in the Control of Glycolysis

Abstract

This chapter discusses the relations between the mitochondrial space and the cytoplasmic space. It has been widely assumed that the cytoplasmic space can be treated, so far as intermediary metabolism is concerned, as a homogeneous space in which all the glycolytic enzymes of the cell reside, and that these enzymes and their substrates are not found elsewhere in the cell. Many sophisticated calculations depend implicitly on these assumptions. Apart from the evidence collected in other studies, this belief no doubt had its foundation in the ease with which the pioneers of biochemistry extracted glycolytic enzymes with water from broken cells, and from the methods of purifying the glycolytic enzymes worked out in Biicher's laboratory. It is important to review the evidence pointing to significant compartmentation of glycolytic intermediates. © 1977, ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.