The Essence of ATP Coupling

Abstract

The traditional explanation of ATP coupling is based on the raising of the equilibrium constants of the biochemical reactions. But in the frames of the detailed balance, no coupling occurs under thermodynamic equilibrium. The role of ATP in coupling is not that it provides an increase in the equilibrium constants of thermodynamically unfavorable reactions but that the unfavorable reactions are replaced by other reactions which kinetically are more favorable and give rise to the same products. The coupling with ATP hydrolysis results in the formation of quasistationary intermediate states.