Phosphorylation

Phosphorylation is the addition of a phosphoryl group (PO₃²⁻) to a molecule. Phosphorylation and its counterpart, dephosphorylation, turn many protein enzymes on and off, thereby altering their function and activity. Protein phosphorylation is one type of post-translational modification.

Protein phosphorylation in particular plays a significant role in a wide range of cellular processes. Its prominent role in biochemistry is the subject of a very large body of research (as of March 2015, the Medline database returns over 240,000 articles on the subject, largely on protein phosphorylation).

Protein phosphorylation

History

In 1906, Phoebus Levene at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research identified phosphate in the protein vitellin (phosvitin), and by 1933 had detected phosphoserine in casein, with Fritz Lipmann. However, it took another 20 years before Eugene P. Kennedy described the first ‘enzymatic phosphorylation of proteins’.

Function