I was wondering what exactly a coupled reaction is and why cells couple them. I read the wikipedia article as well as several others, such as life.illinois.edu but I still don't get it. Could someone explain it to me?
Answer
It's pretty simple. A reaction occurs that releases energy (like ATP losing a phosphate to become ADP + Pi). If this is uncoupled, the energy will merely turn into heat. If it is coupled, then it can be used to fuel some other process. For instance, if you couple the ATP -> ADP reaction to a certain protein, the energy can be used to modify the shape of that protein.
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