ATP – An Energy-Rich Compound with a Long History

Phosphorylation of ribose sugars is central to life in its present form as well as throughout evolution. This reaction chemically activates sugars and hence plays a major role in the transmission of information and energy conservation. Nature has chosen adenosine-5ʹ-triphosphate (ATP) as a widely used energy source in a variety of cellular energy-converting processes. A few but important examples are the anabolic and catabolic biochemical pathways, solute and ion transport (osmotic work), and mechanical work (e.g., muscle contraction or cell motility).

ATP was first described by the German chemist Karl Lohmann in 1929, who isolated it from muscle and liver extracts (Langen and Hucho, 2008). The first chemical synthesis of ATP outside a living cell was performed by the Nobel Laureate Lord Alexander Robertus Todd in 1949 (Baddiley et al., 1949). Already in 1935, the Russian scientist Vladimir Engelhardt noted that muscle contraction requires ATP. Two years later, the Danish scientist Herman Moritz Kalckar established that ATP synthesis is linked with cell respiration and that ATP represents the final product of the catabolic reaction. In the years 1939–1941, Fritz Lipmann showed that ATP is the main bearer of chemical energy in the cell. He coined the phrase “energy-rich phosphate bonds” (Lipmann, 1941). The reason for this expression lies in the structure of ATP.