Biology 2nd Edition by Robert Brooker, Eric Widmaier ,Linda Graham ,Peter Stiling

Exercise 12

What is the advantage of using ATP as a common energy source Another way of asking this question is, "Why does ATP provide an advantage over using a bunch of different food molecules " For example, instead of just having a Na + /K + -ATPase in a cell, why not have many different ion pumps, each driven by a different food molecule, like a Na + /K + -glucosase (a pump that uses glucose), a Na + /K + -sucrase (a pump that uses sucrose), a Na + /K + -fatty acidase (a pump that uses fatty acids), and so on