Esterification question

[dougkaye]

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If esterification in vitro is generally very slow without a strong acid, how are esters formed in vivo? I guess it would be through enzymatic catalysis but I was curious if anyone knew off-hand how this works since our body (hopefully) doesn't have any strong acids catalyzing reactions 🙂 Specifically I would be curious how this works with triglyceride biosynthesis.

 

[Rabolisk]

Esterification in vivo is done through enzymatic catalysis. In triglyceride synthesis the hydroxyl group on glycerol-3-phosphate is esterified by a fatty acyl-CoA with the help of an acyltransferase enzyme. Instead of water being the leaving group as in fischer esterification, CoA is the leaving group in these reactions.