Organelle Upgrades Discussion

Future Game Microbe Stage
15
I know this has been discussed already, but I want to speak about upgrades and proteins.
As you know, all lifeforms have to use catalysts to make their metabolism faster. For each organelle process, there would be a base catalyst (no upgrade) and then three unlockable catalysts. Each of them can improve a process either in its own way (standard catalyst) or simply overwrite a previous one if necessary (catalyst upgrade).

For example:

Organelle Catalyst Effect
Cytosol (or cytoplasm) Base catalyst None
Mitochondrion Catalyst A, Catalyst B, Catalyst C Decrease glucose usage by 3, Increase ATP by 4, Makes anti-toxin for the mitochondrion
Chloroplast Catalyst 1, Catalyst 2 Decreases luminosity required by 1 (unused), Decreases luminosity required by 4 (overwrites the first effect)
With such a system, the devs could use the old processes while tweaking them a bit (to make the catalyst upgrade worth a while). More precisely, we can come back to this respiration process:

C6H12O6 + 6 O2 —> 6 CO2 + 6 H<2>O + 32 ATP

Of course, we can’t have 32 ATP directly from the beginning of the game; it’d be too easy. Catalyst upgrades can achieve this after you unlock them.

There are two issues, however:

  1. How do we unlock the catalysts? It could be done by a mutation in our reality, but how can we translate this into the game? We need to develop a protein system in the game.
  2. I think that some players such as Omicron wouldn’t like the idea, because they would find late-stage too easy, just like in XCOM games.
Let’s breakdown aerobic respiration into its steps.
  1. Glycolysis
  2. Oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate
  3. Krebs cycle

Glycolysis

Overall reaction:

Glucose + 2 NAD+ + 2 ADP + 2 Pi → 2 Pyruvates + 2 NADH + 2 H+ + 2 ATP + 2 H2O

List of notable enzymes in this process:

  • Hexokinase: Phosphorylates glucose and restricts its use to specific processes.
  • Glucose-6-phosphate isomerase (GPI): Turns glucose-6-phosphate into fructose-6-phosphate. It also has a use in neurons, which could be used in Aware stage.
  • Phosphofructokinase 1 (PFK-1): Converts fructose-6-phosphate into fructose 1,6-biphosphate and ADP. It also regulates the glycolysis rate depending on the cell’s need.
  • Phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK 1): Produces 1 ATP.
  • Enolase: Produces water.
  • Pyruvate kinase: Produce 2 Pyruvates and 1 ATP.

Ideas:

  • Hexokinase could be used to change process priorities related to the usage of glucose (to be discussed).
  • PFK-1 would regulate ATP production or usage (to be discussed).
  • PGK 1 and Pyruvate kinase upgrades would increase ATP production from let’s say 1.0 to 2.5 per second (in multiple upgrades).
  • Enolase would change the quantity of water in the environment (to be discussed).

Pyruvate decarboxylation

Overall reaction:

1 Pyruvate + 1 NAD+ + CoA → 1 Acetyl-CoA + NADH + CO2 + H+

There is only one enzyme used from what it seems. It is called the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDC). It doesn’t seem to have a potential upgrade. As for the product acetyl-CoA, it is said that it can be obtained by the breakdown of glucose (glycolysis) and by the breakdown of fatty acids (beta-oxidation). Therefore, maybe there could be an upgrade for PDC to include fatty acids as a second resource for aerobic respiration. That would bring that compound back into the game while giving it the first use to test.
2 Likes