ATP inhibits catabolism? Whaaat?

[Kax0r]

Here's a question I have- Would you expect ATP of ADP to act as an inhibitor or catabolic pathways?


I've been looking it up, but it makes no sense. It looks like the answer is ATP, but isn't ATP pretty much catabolism itself? How do I justify this?

[mith]

ADP has less energy than ATP. Catabolism lowers ADP and produces ATP. Therefore, if ADP was an inhibitor of catabolism, you'd get less and less of ADP as catabolism goes on, and catabolism rate keeps increasing. Now wouldn't that be a bad thing?

[smellor]

ATP is basically the goal of catabolism, but there's not point continuing breakdown if you've got enough ATP for whatever you're doing, better use your time on other things. simply put.