phosphorylate

[ fos-fer-uh-leyt, fos-fawr-uh-, -for- ]

verb (used with object)

, Chemistry.

, phos·pho·ryl·at·ed, phos·pho·ryl·at·ing.

1. to introduce the phosphoryl group into (an organic compound).

Other Words From

• phospho·ryl·ation noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of phosphorylate¹

First recorded in 1930–35; phosphor- + -yl + -ate ¹

Example Sentences

As Hisner put it in a Twitter thread, citing pre-print research from Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate Jennifer Doudna and others, “with N*, the virus could have its cake and eat it too. It can go ahead and phosphorylate N a bit more, boosting RNA synthesis, without having to sacrifice as much assembly efficiency since little N* can take up the slack on that front.”

From Salon

Interestingly, even in mice that don't produce CDKL5, there was still some EB2 phosphorylation taking place, which suggested that another similar enzyme must also be able to phosphorylate it.

From Science Daily

Previous studies11,12 reported that BIK1 and BAK1 phosphorylate members of another group of plant Ca2+ channels, the cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channels, to regulate their function or stability.

From Nature

The authors discovered that mitochondrial dysfunction caused HRI to phosphorylate eIF2α even when haem was plentiful, which was surprising, given that HRI activation had been thought to depend on haem depletion11,12.

From Nature

Individual signals influence TSC2 through distinct protein kinase enzymes, which phosphorylate specific serine or threonine amino-acid residues to modify the protein’s function.

From Nature