Why do living things need ATP?
ATP is the “fueler” of the human body; when ATP is broken down into ADP it releases a large amount of energy that the human body can use for whatever purpose is needed. In the case of anabolic reactions there are many steps in breaking down various molecules into usable fuel for the human body. Glucose, for example, goes through a series of 10 steps before it can be used to create additional ATP and even the very processes that make ATP in the human body require ATP to function themselves; it seems rather counter-intuitive but that’s just the way it has to be. Glucose is very stable on its own but when it’s broken down into smaller components it needs some motivation to do that and so that’s where outside chemicals and the energy contained in ATP come in to play. With active transport ATP is used to active various transport proteins in the plasma membranes of cells. These vary from channel proteins to stage-induction transport proteins but in most cases a phsphate of the ATP bonds with
