Metabolism

Metabolism (from Greek: μεταβολή metabolē, "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical transformations within the cells of living organisms. These enzyme-catalyzed reactions allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. The word metabolism can also refer to all chemical reactions that occur in living organisms, including digestion and the transport of substances into and between different cells, in which case the set of reactions within the cells is called intermediary metabolism or intermediate metabolism.

Metabolism is usually divided into two categories: catabolism, the breaking down of organic matter by way of cellular respiration, and anabolism, the building up of components of cells such as proteins and nucleic acids. Usually, breaking down releases energy and building up consumes energy.

The chemical reactions of metabolism are organized into metabolic pathways, in which one chemical is transformed through a series of steps into another chemical, by a sequence of enzymes. Enzymes are crucial to metabolism because they allow organisms to drive desirable reactions that require energy that will not occur by themselves, by coupling them to spontaneous reactions that release energy. Enzymes act as catalysts that allow the reactions to proceed more rapidly. Enzymes also allow the regulation of metabolic pathways in response to changes in the cell's environment or to signals from other cells.

Cell Metabolism

Cell Metabolism, launched in January 2005, is one of the newer titles in the Cell Press family. The journal focuses on physiology, with an emphasis on understanding the molecular basis of how the body self-regulates in the face of change, and how disturbances in these balances can lead to disease. Advances in these fields take on a special importance given the increasing prevalence of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and related maladies ("metabolic diseases") in the developed world. Created in response to what top scientists saw as a growing need for a specialized journal in this field, Cell Metabolism is run by in-house editorial and production teams with full responsibility for selecting and preparing content for publication.

According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2014 impact factor of 17.565, ranking it second out of 128 journals in the category "Endocrinology & Metabolism."

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