Glycolysis is the process of converting glucose into pyruvate and generating small amounts of ATP (energy) and NADH (reducing power). It is a central pathway that produces important precursor metabolites: six-carbon compounds of glucose-6P and fructose-6P and three-carbon compounds of glycerone-P, glyceraldehyde-3P, glycerate-3P, phosphoenolpyruvate, and pyruvate [MD:
M00001]. Acetyl-CoA, another important precursor metabolite, is produced by oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate [MD:
M00307]. When the enzyme genes of this pathway are examined in completely sequenced genomes, the reaction steps of three-carbon compounds from glycerone-P to pyruvate form a conserved core module [MD:
M00002], which is found in almost all organisms and which sometimes contains operon structures in bacterial genomes. Gluconeogenesis is a synthesis pathway of glucose from noncarbohydrate precursors. It is essentially a reversal of glycolysis with minor variations of alternative paths [MD:
M00003].
