The critical molecule that plays the central role in metabolism goes by the slightly forbidding name of adenosine triphosphate, usually referred to as ATP. The detailed biochemistry of metabolism is extremely complicated but in essence it involves the breaking down of ATP, which is relatively unstable in the cellular environment, from adenosine triphosphate (with three phosphates) into ADP, adenosine diphosphate (with just two phosphates), thereby releasing the energy stored in the binding of the additional phosphate. The energy derived from breaking this phosphate bond is the source of your
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