Cytidine triphosphate (CTP) is a pyrimidine

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 ch ...

. CTP, much like ATP, consists of a ribose sugar, and three phosphate groups. The major difference between the two molecules is the base used, which in CTP is

cytosine Cytosine () ( symbol C or Cyt) is one of the four nucleobases found in DNA and RNA, along with adenine, guanine, and thymine (uracil in RNA). It is a pyrimidine derivative, with a heterocyclic aromatic ring and two substituents attached (an ...

. CTP is a substrate in the synthesis of RNA. CTP is a high-energy molecule similar to ATP, but its role as an energy coupler is limited to a much smaller subset of metabolic reactions. CTP is a

coenzyme 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 ass ...

in metabolic reactions like the synthesis of glycerophospholipids, where it is used for activation and transfer of diacylglycerol and lipid head groups, and glycosylation of proteins. CTP acts as an inhibitor of the enzyme

aspartate carbamoyltransferase Aspartate carbamoyltransferase (also known as aspartate transcarbamoylase or ATCase) catalyzes the first step in the pyrimidine biosynthetic pathway (). In '' E. coli'', the enzyme is a multi- subunit protein complex composed of 12 subunits (30 ...

, which is used in pyrimidine biosynthesis.Blackburn, G. Michael. ''Nucleic Acids in Chemistry and Biology''. The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2006, p. 119-120.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cytidine Triphosphate Nucleotides Phosphate esters Pyrimidones

See also

References