The creatine phosphate shuttle is an intracellular energy shuttle which facilitates transport of high energy phosphate from muscle cell mitochondria to myofibrils. This is part of phosphocreatine metabolism. In mitochondria, Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels are very high as a result of glycolysis, TCA cycle, oxidative phosphorylation processes, whereas creatine phosphate levels are low. This makes conversion of creatine to phosphocreatine a highly favored reaction. Phosphocreatine is a very-high-energy compound. It then diffuses from mitochondria to myofibrils.
In myofibrils, during exercise (contraction) ADP levels are very high, which favors resynthesis of ATP. Thus, phosphocreatine breaks down to creatine, giving its inorganic phosphate for ATP formation. This is done by the enzyme creatine phosphokinase which transduces energy from the transport molecule of phosphocreatine to the useful molecule for contraction demands, ATP, an action performed by ATPase in the myofibril. The resulting creatine product acts as a signal molecule indicating myofibril contraction and diffuses in the opposite direction of phosphocreatine, back towards the mitochondrial intermembrane space where it can be rephosphorylated by creatine phosphokinase.
At the onset of exercise phosphocreatine is broken down to provide ATP for muscle contraction. ATP hydrolysis results in products of ADP and inorganic phosphate. The inorganic phosphate will be transported into the mitochondrial matrix, while the free creatine passes through the outer membrane where it will be resynthesised into PCr. The antiporter transports the ADP into the matrix, while transporting ATP out. Due to the high concentration of ATP around the mitochondrial creatine kinase, it will convert ATP into PCr which will then move back out into the cells cytoplasm to be converted into ATP (by cytoplasmic creatine kinase) to be used as energy for muscle contraction.
In some vertebrates, arginine phosphate plays a similar role.