Fatty acid β-oxidation is the process by which fatty acids are broken down to produce energy.
Fatty acids are activated for degradation by conjugation with coenzyme A (CoA) in the cytosol. The long-chain fatty-acyl-CoA is then modified by carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 (CPT1) to acylcarnitine and transported across the inner mitochondrial membrane by carnitine translocase (CAT). CPT2 then coverts the long chain acylcarnitine back to long-chain acyl-CoA before beta-oxidation.
Beta-oxidation
Beta-oxidation consists of four steps:
1) Dehydrogenation catalyzed by acyl-CoA dehydrogenase, which removes two hydrogens between carbons 2 and 3.
2) Hydration catalyzed by enoyl-CoA hydratase, which adds water across the double bond.
3) Dehydrogenation catalyzed by 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase, which generates NADH.
4) Thiolytic cleavage catalyzed beta-ketothiolase, which cleaves the terminal acetyl-CoA group and forms a new acyl-CoA which is two carbons shorter than the previous one.
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