Abstract

A NOVEL MATHEMATICAL EQUATION FOR CALCULATING THE NUMBER OF ATP MOLECULES GENERATED FROM SUGARS IN CELLS

Yahya khawaja and Rafik Karaman*

Abstract

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is critical for all life from the simplest to the most complex. All organisms from the microscopic to humans utilize ATP as the source for their primary energy currency. This manuscript describes a novel method to calculate the number of ATP molecules generated from the consumption of any sugar (having 3-7 carbons). This calculation method based on the oxidation states of the sugar’s carbons. The time needed to calculate the number of ATP molecules by this method is less than 2 minutes whereas that required by the current (regular) method is many hours and even days in some cases. In addition, the current method requires drawing all biochemical processes that the sugar undergoes upon its cellular respiration (oxidation) while our method described herein does not.

Keywords: ATP, Adenosine triphosphate, Energy currency, Sugars, Oxidation state, Hexoses, Pentoses.