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Glycolysis: A Poem
by Alec Adams

Glycolysis always just starts with glucose,
In the cytosol, now glucose where do you go?
It could fly away, to the extracellular space,
But it gets phosphorylated by hexokinase,
It costs ATP, to make G-6-P,
But now it's trapped in the cell, and can proceed,
If there's plenty of ATP, and insulin,
Then we've got the conditions to make glycogen,
Product inhibition by HK's alright,
But we need ATP: we isomerize...
To fructose-6-phosphate, are you listening yet?
Cause PFK's the rate limiting step,
Inhibited yes, by allosterically fitting,
And changing the enzyme, it's finicky, this could be...
From PCr, ATP and apparently,
Citrate and H plus also works merrily,
To enhance, the rate take a stance,
With ADP, AMP, Pi and dance,
One last time, ATP is consumed,
To make fructose-1-6-diphosphate, it's all true,
That 6 carbon has to go, all the way,
To 3 carbon backbones, by aldolase,
Making dihydroxyacetone, phosphate,
And to the other 3-C backbone it can go,
And isomerize,

To 3-phosphoglyceraldehyde,
With Pi, the enzyme, is a dehydrogenase ,
It always makes NADH, and that's all it takes,
But wait, we added a phosphate to the substrate,
1-3-diphosphoglycerate,

We find ways with a kinase for ATP making,
The next enzyme catalyzes substrate phosphorylating,
are we even with ATP? you can believe it,
Make 3-phosphoglycerate and kinase does speed it,
Then we do make 2-phosphoglycerate with a mutase,
Which will enolize to phosphoenopyruvate,
Now for the "pay-off" as it's often called,
We get 2 ATP cause we double it alllllll....
Of it with pyruvate kinase we control,
The reaction it happens cause PEP makes it go,
But it goes slow with PCr and citrate,
2 net ATP in the end and that's great!

We've gone a long way, and by coming this far,
We make pyruvate and now here we are,
Are aerobic or anaerobic?
We can be both, whichever you pick,
At steady state or low intensity,
We predominantly do OP-ETC,
If we need energy fast we can run,
To LDH, and fermentation,
H+ is bad, but lactate is fuel,
It's used in the liver and muscle tissue,
It's a reduction reaction because,
We oxidize NADH and H+,
To cycle it back, as a cofactor,
For g-3-p-d, H know why it matters,
Hope you could follow it, that's all there is,
To explaining the basics of glycolysis!