Guanosine-5'-triphosphate (GTP) is a

purine Purine is a heterocyclic compound, heterocyclic aromatic organic compound that consists of two rings (pyrimidine and imidazole) fused together. It is water-soluble. Purine also gives its name to the wider class of molecules, purines, which includ ...

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 cha ...

. It is one of the building blocks needed for the synthesis of

RNA Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydra ...

during the

transcription Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including: Genetics * Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...

process. Its structure is similar to that of the

guanosine Guanosine (symbol G or Guo) is a purine nucleoside comprising guanine attached to a ribose (ribofuranose) ring via a β-N9-glycosidic bond. Guanosine can be phosphorylated to become guanosine monophosphate (GMP), cyclic guanosine monophosphate (c ...

nucleoside Nucleosides are glycosylamines that can be thought of as nucleotides without a phosphate group. A nucleoside consists simply of a nucleobase (also termed a nitrogenous base) and a five-carbon sugar (ribose or 2'-deoxyribose) whereas a nucleotide ...

, the only difference being that

nucleotide Nucleotides are organic molecules consisting of a nucleoside and a phosphate. They serve as monomeric units of the nucleic acid polymers – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which are essential biomolecules wi ...

s like GTP have

phosphate In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phospho ...

s on their

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, , is a component of the ribonucleotides from which RNA is built, and so this compo ...

sugar. GTP has the

guanine Guanine () ( symbol G or Gua) is one of the four main nucleobases found in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, the others being adenine, cytosine, and thymine (uracil in RNA). In DNA, guanine is paired with cytosine. The guanine nucleoside is called ...

nucleobase Nucleobases, also known as ''nitrogenous bases'' or often simply ''bases'', are nitrogen-containing biological compounds that form nucleosides, which, in turn, are components of nucleotides, with all of these monomers constituting the basic b ...

attached to the 1' carbon of the ribose and it has the triphosphate moiety attached to ribose's 5' carbon. It also has the role of a source of energy or an activator of substrates in metabolic reactions, like that of ATP, but more specific. It is used as a source of energy for

protein synthesis Protein biosynthesis (or protein synthesis) is a core biological process, occurring inside Cell (biology), cells, homeostasis, balancing the loss of cellular proteins (via Proteolysis, degradation or Protein targeting, export) through the product ...

and

gluconeogenesis Gluconeogenesis (GNG) is a metabolic pathway that results in the generation of glucose from certain non-carbohydrate carbon substrates. It is a ubiquitous process, present in plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and other microorganisms. In vertebrat ...

. GTP is essential to

signal transduction Signal transduction is the process by which a chemical or physical signal is transmitted through a cell as a series of molecular events, most commonly protein phosphorylation catalyzed by protein kinases, which ultimately results in a cellula ...

, in particular with

G-proteins G proteins, also known as guanine nucleotide-binding proteins, are a family of proteins that act as molecular switches inside cells, and are involved in transmitting signals from a variety of stimuli outside a cell to its interior. Their ac ...

, in second-messenger mechanisms where it is converted to

guanosine diphosphate Guanosine diphosphate, abbreviated GDP, is a nucleoside diphosphate. It is an ester of pyrophosphoric acid with the nucleoside guanosine. GDP consists of a pyrophosphate group, a pentose sugar ribose, and the nucleobase guanine. GDP is the product ...

(GDP) through the action of

GTPase GTPases are a large family of hydrolase enzymes that bind to the nucleotide guanosine triphosphate (GTP) and hydrolyze it to guanosine diphosphate (GDP). The GTP binding and hydrolysis takes place in the highly conserved P-loop "G domain", a pro ...

Uses

Energy transfer

GTP is involved in energy transfer within the cell. For instance, a GTP molecule is generated by one of the enzymes in the

citric acid cycle The citric acid cycle (CAC)—also known as the Krebs cycle or the TCA cycle (tricarboxylic acid cycle)—is a series of chemical reactions to release stored energy through the oxidation of acetyl-CoA derived from carbohydrates, fats, and proteins ...

. This is tantamount to the generation of one molecule of ATP, since GTP is readily converted to ATP with

nucleoside-diphosphate kinase Nucleoside-diphosphate kinases (NDPKs, also NDP kinase, (poly)nucleotide kinases and nucleoside diphosphokinases) are enzymes that catalyze the exchange of terminal phosphate between different nucleoside diphosphates (NDP) and triphosphates (NTP) ...

(NDK).Stryer>

Genetic translation

During the elongation stage of

translation Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

, GTP is used as an energy source for the binding of a new amino-bound

tRNA Transfer RNA (abbreviated tRNA and formerly referred to as sRNA, for soluble RNA) is an adaptor molecule composed of RNA, typically 76 to 90 nucleotides in length (in eukaryotes), that serves as the physical link between the mRNA and the amino ac ...

to the A site of the

ribosome Ribosomes ( ) are macromolecular machines, found within all cells, that perform biological protein synthesis (mRNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order specified by the codons of messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules to ...

. GTP is also used as an energy source for the translocation of the ribosome towards the 3' end of the

mRNA In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of Protein biosynthesis, synthesizing a protein. mRNA is ...

Microtubule dynamic instability

During

microtubule Microtubules are polymers of tubulin that form part of the cytoskeleton and provide structure and shape to eukaryotic cells. Microtubules can be as long as 50 micrometres, as wide as 23 to 27 nm and have an inner diameter between 11 an ...

polymerization, each heterodimer formed by an alpha and a beta tubulin molecule carries two GTP molecules, and the GTP is hydrolyzed to GDP when the tubulin dimers are added to the plus end of the growing microtubule. Such GTP hydrolysis is not mandatory for microtubule formation, but it appears that only GDP-bound tubulin molecules are able to depolymerize. Thus, a GTP-bound tubulin serves as a cap at the tip of microtubule to protect from depolymerization; and, once the GTP is hydrolyzed, the microtubule begins to depolymerize and shrink rapidly.

Mitochondrial function

The translocation of proteins into the mitochondrial matrix involves the interactions of both GTP and ATP. The importing of these proteins plays an important role in several pathways regulated within the mitochondria organelle, such as converting

oxaloacetate Oxaloacetic acid (also known as oxalacetic acid or OAA) is a crystalline organic compound with the chemical formula HO2CC(O)CH2CO2H. Oxaloacetic acid, in the form of its conjugate base oxaloacetate, is a metabolic intermediate in many processes ...

phosphoenolpyruvate Phosphoenolpyruvate (2-phosphoenolpyruvate, PEP) is the ester derived from the enol of pyruvate and phosphate. It exists as an anion. PEP is an important intermediate in biochemistry. It has the highest-energy phosphate bond found (−61.9 kJ/ ...

(PEP) in gluconeogenesis.

Precursor for synthesis of riboflavin

GTP, in combination with

ribulose 5-phosphate Ribulose 5-phosphate is one of the end-products of the pentose phosphate pathway. It is also an intermediate in the Calvin cycle The Calvin cycle, light-independent reactions, bio synthetic phase, dark reactions, or photosynthetic carbon reducti ...

, are the precursor compounds for the synthesis of

riboflavin Riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2, is a vitamin found in food and sold as a dietary supplement. It is essential to the formation of two major coenzymes, flavin mononucleotide and flavin adenine dinucleotide. These coenzymes are involved in ...

(vitamin B₂).

Biosynthesis

In the cell, GTP is synthesised through many processes including: * as a byproduct of the

Succinyl-CoA Succinyl-coenzyme A, abbreviated as succinyl-CoA () or SucCoA, is a thioester of succinic acid and coenzyme A. Sources It is an important intermediate in the citric acid cycle, where it is synthesized from α-ketoglutarate by α-ketoglutarate d ...

Succinate Succinic acid () is a dicarboxylic acid with the chemical formula (CH2)2(CO2H)2. The name derives from Latin ''succinum'', meaning amber. In living organisms, succinic acid takes the form of an anion, succinate, which has multiple biological ro ...

conversion catalysed by the Succinyl-CoA synthetase enzyme as part of the

Krebs cycle The citric acid cycle (CAC)—also known as the Krebs cycle or the TCA cycle (tricarboxylic acid cycle)—is a series of chemical reactions to release stored energy through the oxidation of acetyl-CoA derived from carbohydrates, fats, and protein ...

;Stryer /> * through exchanges of phosphate groups from ATP molecules by the

Nucleoside-diphosphate kinase Nucleoside-diphosphate kinases (NDPKs, also NDP kinase, (poly)nucleotide kinases and nucleoside diphosphokinases) are enzymes that catalyze the exchange of terminal phosphate between different nucleoside diphosphates (NDP) and triphosphates (NTP) ...

, an enzyme tasked with maintaining an equilibrium between the concentrations of different nucleoside triphosphates.Stryer />

References

External links

GTP bound to proteins
in the PDB {{DEFAULTSORT:Guanosine phosphate3 Nucleotides Purines Phosphate esters