Glucose 1-phosphate is a glucose molecule with a phosphate group on the 1-carbon.

It is the direct product of the reaction in which glycogen phosphorylase cleaves off a molecule of glucose from a greater glycogen structure. It cannot travel down many metabolic pathways and must be interconverted by the enzyme phosphoglucomutase in order to become glucose 6-phosphate.

Free glucose 1-phosphate can also react with UTP to form UDP-glucose . It can then return to the greater glycogen structure via glycogen synthase .

See also

• Glucose
• Glycogen
• Glucose 6-phosphate
• Pentose phosphate pathway