5.1.2 Excretion Flashcards
What is excretion?
removal of metabolic waste
What is the importance of excretion?
maintains metabolism and homeostasis
What happens if carbon dioxide is no excreted?
- carbon dioxide is toxic
- hydrogen carbonate ions reduces the ability to transport oxygen
forms - carbominohaemoglobin which has a low affinity for oxygen that normal Hb - respiratory acidosis
Why is it important to remove nitrogenous waste from the body?
- body cant store amino acids
- but they still contain energy
- in the liver toxic amino acids are removed (deamination)
How is excess amino acids removed?
- liver deaminates amino acids
- amino acid + oxygen = keto acid + ammonia
- ammonia cannot be stored
- converted into less soluble and less toxic = urea = excreted from the body
What are the two blood supplied to the liver?
hepatic artery
hepatic portal view
What is the hepatic artery?
brings oxygenated blood from the aorta
liver requires oxygen for processes such as aerobic respiration = generate ATP
What is the hepatic portal vien?
delivers deoxygenated blood from the digestive tract
includes toxins and nutrients e.g glucose
What blood vessel takes blood away from the liver?
hepatic vein
takes it to the vena cava
taken back to the heart
under lower pressure
What are the lobules of liver called?
hepatocytes
What are sinisoids?
vessels that connect the haptic artery and the hepatic vein to allow hepatocytes to remove harmful substances from blood
What is the role of the bile duct?
hepatocytes make bile
transfers to the gall bladder
What are Kupffer cells?
cells attached to the walls of the sinusoid, they remove bacteria and break down RBC’s
What is the function of hepatic cells?
break down harmful products arriving from the hepatic portal vein from digestive tract e.g alcohol
also make bile
What is urea?
main nitrogenous waste product, produced from the breakdown of excess amino acids
What is the ornithine cycle?
reactions converting ammonia to urea
What is detoxification and where does it occur?
Removal of toxic substances
Occurs in the hepatocytes in the liver
What are the 2 processes to make urea?
1) deamination
2) ornithine cycle
What is deamination?
amino acid + oxygen = keto acid + ammonia
- uses excess amino acids
- amine group is removed from each amino acid
- ammonia is formed which is highly toxic and soluble
What is the use of keto acid produced in deamination?
- can enter the krebs cycle and undergo aerobic respiration
- used to make things like lipids and cholesterol
What is the process of the ornithine cycle?
ammonia + carbon dioxide = urea + water
urea is then taken from the liver to the kidneys where it is excreted when dissolved in water as urine