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Signal Transduction Can Alter Metabolism: the Epinephrine Case

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A signaling pathway can alter a cell's metabolism directly, without touching gene expression, by phosphorylating existing metabolic enzymes.

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Epinephrine raises cyclic AMP in muscle cells, and the resulting phosphorylation both activates glycogen breakdown and blocks glycogen synthesis at once.

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Epinephrine is also called adrenaline. The pathway alters existing enzyme activity, not the genes encoding them, so the effect is immediate.