Glucose cycle The glucose cycle can occur in liver cells due to a liver specific enzyme glucose-6-phosphatase, which catalyse the dephosphorylation of glucose 6-phosphate back to glucose. Glucose-6-phosphate is the product of glycogenolysis or gluconeogenesis, where the goal is to increase free glucose in the blood due body being in catabolic state. Other cells such as muscle and brain cells do not contain glucose 6-phosphatase. As a result, any glucose 6-phosphate produced in those cells is committed to cellular metabolic pathways, primarily pentose phosphate pathway or glycolysis. Flux through the glucose cycle is regulated by several hormones including insulin and glucagon as
Glucose The free energy of formation of α-D-glucose is 917.2 kilojoules per mole. In humans, gluconeogenesis occurs in the liver and kidney, but also in other cell types. In the liver about 150 g of glycogen are stored, in skeletal muscle about 250 g.<ref name="Löffler/Petrides 389">Peter C. Heinrich: "Löffler/Petrides Biochemie und Pathobiochemie." Springer-Verlag, 2014, , p. 389. (german)</ref> However, the glucose released in muscle cells upon cleavage of the glycogen can not be delivered to the circulation because glucose is phosphorylated by the hexokinae, and a glucose-6-phosphatase is not expressed to remove the phosphate group. Unlike for glucose, there is no