Energy

(To the tune of “Let It Be”) / Recording by Tim Karplus

When I was walking through the forest
Grizzly bears came after me
So I was badly needing En-er-gy

My body dumped some epinephrine
Out into the blood for me
‘Cause I was badly needing
En-er-gy

En-er-gy / En-er-gy
En-er-gy / En-er-gy
I was badly needing
En-er-gy

The epinephrine gave a kick to
Enzymes deep inside of me
To make a bunch of cyclic
AMP

And when this hit my protein kinase
Catalytic ecstasy
The C subunits started
Adding P’s

Adding P’s, adding P’s
Adding P’s, adding P’s
Phosphorylation city_x000B_Adding P’s

The protein kinase put a phosphate
Onto PBK for me
Using energy from
ATP

And PBK in turn provided
GPa from GPb
So I released a ton of
G1P

G1P / energy
G1P / energy
California needs some
G1P

And when the chaos had subsided
I consumed some Frito Lays
Which soon began reversing
These pathways

The glucose halted epinephrine
Insulin began the race to
Turn on Phosphoprotein
Phosphatase

Phosphatase – cleaves the P’s
Phosphatase – cleaves the P’s
The dephosphorylation
Cleaves the P’s

And so they were removed from action
Cellular kinases
Thanks to Phosphoprotein
Phosphatase

I’ll end my story here before I
Get depressed from one last fact
That dephosphorylation
Favors fat

Favors fat, favors fat
Favors fat, favors fat
Dephosphorylation favors fat