What's in the real world? Sad dogs and really mean people.

Also, the glycolytic pathway is in the real world.

Glycolysis? What's that? Something Lenny can probably draw out in full in his sleep, without waking up.

But for US, it's what converts glucose that we eat into pyruvate. The free energy (shit, there's that word again) that gets released during glycolysis is used to form high-energy compounds ATP and NADH. I have a feeling I'm going to really, really like talking about this, or I'm going to dislike it so much that I'm going to crawl into bed and cry immediately after.

But let's see !

This section talks about the second step in the glycolysis pathways..isomerization of glucose-6-phosphate (G6P) to fructose-6-phosphate (F6P). I've conveniently drawn out the structural forms and forgot to label the drawing on the right as F6P but that's what that is. For anyone who doesn't know the word isomerization...isomers are compounds with the same molecular formulas but different structural appearances. They have the same crap in them but they look different. 

G6P <----> F6P is ΔGs = +1.7kJ/mol

Remember words like endergonic and exergonic? And remember how we keep forgetting what they mean? Endergonic processes are related to ΔG+ reactions while exergonic are related to ΔG- reactions.

This reaction, G6P <--> F6P is endergonic. When both products and reactants are at 1M concentrations both, since ΔGs is positive, we end up with the equilibrium lying to the Left, with "more reactants than products", so favoring the REVERSE reaction, being F6P < ---- > G6P

What kind of numbers are we talking about here? Just how MUCH is it unfavorable to make F6P? The next three photos are really slow math, going back to formula we've talked about and incorporating this concept INTO it.

Here, I'm just showing what we're going to be solving for...the equilibrium constant thing....which way things want to go.

Here, I just show that we're still talking about ΔGs stuff. I always get lost and forget where numbers come from so it's a good idea to keep pretty good track of that.

Now, let's remember that we're not at equilibrium cause if we were, we would be dead.

And such, the concentrations of crap inside of our cells isn't at equilibirum, either. 

A little while ago, I said that K and Q are "sort of" interchangeable. Well, here's a clarification:

Since ΔG isn't zero, that means it's either + or -, meaning the reaction is either being driven forward or in the reverse direction, which means....something has to be driving that reaction.

That puts things more into perspective.

So how can we maintain that Q < K, and form the products of the reaction as written favorably?

The system can consume the products as soon as they are formed, such that it makes the product concentration low compared to the reactant concentration, which will drive the system to make more of the product in turn. When you remove the product, it'll drive more of the reactant to make more of the product.

You can also maintain Q < K by keeping the concentrations of reactants high. Keeping the concentration of the reactants high will drive the reaction to make more of the products. 

We can make the reactions that are thermodynamically unfavorable go by either keeping the Q < K situation going (by continuously removing products or continuously supplying reactants) or by coupling unfavorable reactions to favorable reactions. Types of favorable reactions to which unfavorable reactions are coupled are ion transport across membranes and hydrolysis of ATP.