Metabolic generation and utilization of phosphate bond energy.

In this paper about group potential and the transfer of acetyl and phosphoryl groups Lipmann proposed that acetyl phosphate acted as an acetyl door in the biosynthesis of essential metabolites and that ATP functioned as a generalized energy carrier. In this essay he also introduced the term ‘energy-rich phosphate bond’ and the squiggle to denote this distinction (~P)” (Kresge, Simoni and Hill, “Fritz Lipmann and the discovery of coenzyme A,” Journal of Biological Chemistry 280 (2005): 164-166.)