Explain Skeletal muscle
Skeletal muscle has low activity of glucose-6-phosphate dehydogenase. Yet, like most other tissues it can synthesize ribose-5-phosphate. This is.probably accomplished by a reversal of the shunt pathway utilizing fructose-6-phosphate and glyceraldehyde-3- phosphate and the enzymes transketolase and transaldolase. Both fructose-6-phosphate and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate are utilized in Embden-Meyerhof pathway for glycolysis. Hence it is not necessary to have a completely functioning HMP pathway for a tissue to synthesize ribose-5-phosphate.