Pyruvate kinase is an enzyme involved in glycolysis. It catalyzes the transfer of a phosphoryl group from phosphoenolpyruvate to ADP, yielding a pyruvate molecule. This process requires magnesium ion. This produces one molecule of ATP from the ADP. It is a hydrolase under the international classification of enzymes.

This step is the final one in the glycolytic pathway, which produces pyruvate molecules that can be converted, as acetyl CoA, to ATP. It is also one of the three steps in glycolysis that regulate the activity of the pathway overall.

Pyruvate kinase activity is regulated by

• Fructose 1,6-bisphosphate, an intermediate in glycolysis, which upregulates pyruvate kinase. In so doing, it drives glycolysis to operate faster when more substrate is present.
• Insulin, which activates pyruvate kinase during the fed state by dephosphorylating it (i.e. removing a phosphate group)
• Alanine, which inhibits pyruvate kinase

Genetic defects of this enzyme cause the disease known as pyruvate kinase deficiency. In this condition, a lack of pyruvate kinase slows down the process of glycolysis. This effect is especially devastating in cells that lack mitochondria, because these cells must use anaerobic glycolysis as their sole source of energy because the TCA cycle is not available.

One example is red blood cells, which in a state of pyruvate kinase deficiency rapidly become deficient in ATP and can undergo hemolysis. Therefore, pyruvate kinase deficiency can cause hemolytic anemia.

Pyruvate kinase also serves as a regulatory enzyme for gluconeogenesis, a biochemical pathway in which the liver generates glucose from pyruvate and other substrates. When pyruvate kinase is inhibited by phosphorylation (which occurs in the fasting state, via glucagon), phosphoenolpyruvate is prevented from conversion to pyruvate. Instead, it is converted to glucose in a series of gluconeogenesis reactions that are mostly (but not exactly) the reverse sequence of glycolysis.

The glucose thus produced is expelled from the liver, providing energy for vital tissues in the fasting state.

Pyruvatkinase