Metabolic intermediate
Metabolic intermediates are molecules which are the precursors or metabolites of biologically significant molecules.
Although these intermediates are of relatively minor direct importance to cellular function, they can play important roles in the allosteric regulation of enzymes.
Clinical significance
Some can be useful in measuring rates of metabolic processes (for example, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid or 3-aminoisobutyrate).
Because they can represent unnatural points of entry into natural metabolic pathways, some (such as AICA ribonucleotide) are of interest to researchers in developing new therapies.
gollark: Still, mine is at least above zero.
gollark: I'm not really sure how adding of infinities works, exactly.
gollark: Well, I have an infinite amount more than that.
gollark: My faith in humanity is stored as a floating point, so if it goes too low it'll just be -Infinity or NaN or something.
gollark: I wouldn't trust Trump to actually do any of the things he's said he would.
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