The discovery of fructose-1,6-diphosphate (the harden-young ester) in the molecularization of fermentation and of bioenergetics

Summary

Early in the twentieth centuryHarden andYoung extended the work ofBuchner on cell-free alcoholic fermentation by the observation that salts of orthophosphoric acid stimulate that fermentation.Wroblewski had made a similar observation beforeHarden andYoung. By concerning themselves with the intermediate fate of phosphate rather than with the “buffering” capacity of phosphate as hadWroblewski to explain the stimulation,Harden andYoung were led to the discovery of a sugar diphosphate in the system. That compound, which became known as theHarden-Young ester and which later was shown to be fructose-1,6-diphosphate, was the first chemical intermediate discovered in fermentation. Its discovery let to the ultimate description of fermentation in terms of molecular intermediates, i.e., to the “molecularization” of fermentation.