Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Pyrophosphate
Summary
In chemistry, pyrophosphates are phosphorus oxyanions that contain two phosphorus atoms in a P–O–P linkage. A number of pyrophosphate salts exist, such as disodium pyrophosphate (Na2H2P2O7) and tetrasodium pyrophosphate (Na4P2O7), among others. Often pyrophosphates are called diphosphates. The parent pyrophosphates are derived from partial or complete neutralization of pyrophosphoric acid. The pyrophosphate bond is also sometimes referred to as a phosphoanhydride bond, a naming convention which emphasizes the loss of water that occurs when two phosphates form a new P–O–P bond, and which mirrors the nomenclature for anhydrides of carboxylic acids. Pyrophosphates are found in ATP and other nucleotide triphosphates, which are important in biochemistry. The term pyrophosphate is also the name of esters formed by the condensation of a phosphorylated biological compound with inorganic phosphate, as for dimethylallyl pyrophosphate. This bond is also referred to as a high-energy phosphate bond.
Pyrophosphoric acid is a tetraprotic acid, with four distinct pKa's:
pKa = 0.85
pKa = 1.96
pKa = 6.60
pKa = 9.41
The pKa's occur in two distinct ranges because deprotonations occur on separate phosphate groups. For comparison with the pKa's for phosphoric acid are 2.14, 7.20, and 12.37.
At physiological pH's, pyrophosphate exists as a mixture of doubly and singly protonated forms.
Disodium pyrophosphate is prepared by thermal condensation of sodium dihydrogen phosphate or by partial deprotonation of pyrophosphoric acid.
Pyrophosphates are generally white or colorless. The alkali metal salts are water-soluble. They are good complexing agents for metal ions (such as calcium and many transition metals) and have many uses in industrial chemistry. Pyrophosphate is the first member of an entire series of polyphosphates.
The anion P2O74− is abbreviated PPi, standing for inorganic pyrophosphate. It is formed by the hydrolysis of ATP into AMP in cells.
ATP → AMP + PPi
For example, when a nucleotide is incorporated into a growing DNA or RNA strand by a polymerase, pyrophosphate (PPi) is released.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Ontological neighbourhood
Related courses (3)
ENV-202: Microbiology for engineers
"Microbiology for engineers" covers the main microbial processes that take place in the environment and in treatment systems. It presents elemental cycles that are catalyzed by microorganisms and that
BIO-212: Biological chemistry I
Biochemistry is a key discipline for the Life Sciences. Biological Chemistry I and II are two tightly interconnected courses that aim to describe and understand in molecular terms the processes that m
BIO-105: Cellular biology and biochemistry for engineers
Basic course in biochemistry as well as cellular and molecular biology for non-life science students enrolling at the Master or PhD thesis level from various engineering disciplines. It reviews essent
Related lectures (25)
Metabolic Signaling: Glycolysis and ATP Production
Explores glycolysis, ATP production, and metabolic signaling in cancer and drug discovery.
Energy Transformations: ATP and Cellular Work
Explores major themes in biology, focusing on energy transformations within cellular systems and the crucial role of adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
DNA Replication: Mechanisms and Errors
Explores DNA replication mechanisms, including speed, errors, proofreading, and semiconservative nature, emphasizing the importance of maintaining DNA fidelity through mismatch repair.
Related publications (17)
Addressing the challenges of homogeneity, quality control and waste handling in soil bio-cementation: A large-scale experiment
Lyesse Laloui, Dimitrios Terzis, Ray Harran
In an attempt to go beyond the conventional laboratory experiments widely reported in literature around the emerging technique of soil bio-cementation, this work addresses key challenges related to its large-scale application. Precisely, a state-of-the-art ...
JAPANESE GEOTECHNICAL SOC2023Renal Fanconi Syndrome and Hypophosphatemic Rickets in the Absence of Xenotropic and Polytropic Retroviral Receptor in the Nephron
Dmitri Firsov, Vladimir Katanaev
Tight control of extracellular and intracellular inorganic phosphate (Pi) levels is critical to most biochemical and physiologic processes. Urinary Pi is freely filtered at the kidney glomerulus and is reabsorbed in the renal tubule by the action of the ap ...
Amer Soc Nephrology2017Related concepts (16)
Ribose
Ribose is a simple sugar and carbohydrate with molecular formula C5H10O5 and the linear-form composition H−(C=O)−(CHOH)4−H. The naturally-occurring form, -ribose, is a component of the ribonucleotides from which RNA is built, and so this compound is necessary for coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. It has a structural analog, deoxyribose, which is a similarly essential component of DNA. -ribose is an unnatural sugar that was first prepared by Emil Fischer and Oscar Piloty in 1891.
Nucleoside triphosphate
A nucleoside triphosphate is a nucleoside containing a nitrogenous base bound to a 5-carbon sugar (either ribose or deoxyribose), with three phosphate groups bound to the sugar. They are the molecular precursors of both DNA and RNA, which are chains of nucleotides made through the processes of DNA replication and transcription. Nucleoside triphosphates also serve as a source of energy for cellular reactions and are involved in signalling pathways. Nucleoside triphosphates cannot be absorbed well, so they are typically synthesized within the cell.
Cofactor (biochemistry)
A cofactor is a non-protein chemical compound or metallic ion that is required for an enzyme's role as a catalyst (a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction). Cofactors can be considered "helper molecules" that assist in biochemical transformations. The rates at which these happen are characterized in an area of study called enzyme kinetics. Cofactors typically differ from ligands in that they often derive their function by remaining bound.