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Metabolism
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Metabolism is the entire set of chemical reactions that keep a living cell or organism alive, divided into catabolism, the breakdown of molecules that releases energy, and anabolism, the building of new molecules that consumes it. Hans Krebs's 1937 discovery of the citric acid cycle, the closed loop of reactions that completes the oxidation of food molecules inside a cell's mitochondria and captures the energy released, remains the field's central example of how a catabolic pathway is organized, and gave metabolism its first detailed map.
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Metabolism (Wikipedia)
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Metabolic reactions may be categorized as catabolic, the breaking down of compounds, or anabolic, the building up of compounds. Usually, catabolism releases energy, and anabolism consumes energy.
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