physophorylation of monosaccharides

Chris Pung cpung at BANANA.WUSTL.EDU
Sat Jul 27 16:03:22 EST 1996


Can anyone help me with my understanding of what the 
importance of phosphorylation of glucose (or other sugars) 
in the cell is.

Is there a significant chemical difference between 
glucose-1-phosphate and glucose-6-phosphate?

What I have been able to gather from reading is that 
1) phosphorylation helps keep the monosaccarides in the cell
by making them anions
2) phosphorylated sugars are the forms that participate in 
biochemical reactions

But, does phosphorylation of glucose to glucose-1-phosphate 
stabilize the hemiacetal form in the same way that making an 
acetal at the 1 position would?  Does phosphorylation at the 
6 position also stabilize the ring form of glucose? Or, is 
the difference between G-1-P and G-6-P that G-6-P is still a 
hemiacetal and therefore more reactive or able to linearize?

And then, is it possible that one role of phosphorylation to 
G-1-P is to keep the sugar from being a reactive molecule by 
stbilizing it in the non-aldehyde conformation, protecting 
the cell from unwanted reactions?


Chris Pung

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