Final Exam: New Material Flashcards
What are diazotrophs?
The only organisms that produce the enzyme, nitrogenase, capable of fixing N2
How is ammonium incorporated into biomolecules?
A combination of the glutamine synthetase and glutamate synthase reactions results in the formation of an amino acid using ammonium as the nitrogen source.
What is the net reaction of incorporating ammonium into biomolecules?
aKG + NH4+ + NADPH + ATP –> Glu + NADP+ + ADP + Pi
How is nitrogen carried throughout the body?
Amino acids serve as the nitrogen carriers within the body. Nitrogen may be incorporated into other biomolecules by incorporating the amino acid.
How do amino acids transfer amino groups?
What is a transaminase?
Transaminase enzymes swap the carbonyl group of a-keta acids with the amino group of amino acids.
What is the nitrogen source for signaling molecules?
Many signaling molecules (melatonin, dopamine, etc) are derived from amino acids.
Do human beings endogenously produce all 20 amino acids?
Animals only have biosynthetic pathways for some nonessential amino acids. Essential amino acids must be consumes through our diet.
What does nitric oxide do and what is it derived from?
The vasodilator, nitric oxide, is derived from Arginine.
How are nitrogenous bases synthesized?
Amino acids, THF, and HCO3- are the nitrogen precursors of nitrogenous bases.
What is the catabolic fate of purines?
Purines are converted to uric acid (urate) and excreted in the urine.
What is the catabolic fate of pyrimidines?
Pyrimidine catabolism produces intermediates of fatty acid metabolism.
What are the products of glucogenic amino acid catabolism?
Glucogenic amino acids are catabolized to precursors for gluconeogenesis such as pyruvate and oxaloacetate.
What are the products of ketogenic amino acid catabolism?
Ketogenic amino acids are catabolized to acetyl-CoA for use in ketogenesis or fatty acid synthesis.
How do ammonotelic organisms (crustaceans and some fish) excrete excess nitrogen?
Ammonotelic organisms excrete nitrogen as ammonia (NH3), requires a lot of water but uses the least energy.
How do Ureotelic organisms (mammals and some reptiles) excrete excess nitrogen?
Ureotelic organisms excrete nitrogen as urea, requires some energy investment but only a little water.
How is urea made?
What enzyme catalyzes this reaction?
Amino acids transfer their amino groups to a-ketoglutarate using a transaminase reaction to form Glu and Asp which donate their Nitrogen groups to form urea.
How do Uricotelic organisms (birds and reptiles) excrete excess nitrogen?
Uricotelic organisms excrete nitrogen as uric acid, requires very little water but more energy to make.
Why is using less water to excrete nitrogen an advantage to birds?
Means less weight
Why is using less water to excrete nitrogen an advantage to animals in the desert?
Less water loss
What is the Cori cycle?
Under anaerobic conditions, muscles produce lactate which is exported to the liver for gluconeogenesis. The liver then exports the glucose back to the muscles.
Define hormones.
Hormones are substances produced by one tissue that affect the function of other tissues throughout the body.
What does insulin do and where is it released from?
Insulin is released by the B-cells of the pancreas in response to high blood glucose. It signals fuel abundance promoting fuel storage while limiting the release of stored fuels.
How does insulin regulate fuel metabolism in muscle tissue?
-promotes glucose transport into cells
-stimulates glycogen synthesis
-suppresses glycogen breakdown
How does insulin regulate fuel metabolism in adipose tissue?
How does it affect ACC?
-Activates extracellular lipoprotein lipase
-Increases level of acetly-CoA carboxylase
-Stimulates triacylglycerol synthesis
-Suppresses lipolysis
How does insulin regulate fuel metabolism in the liver?
Promotes fuel storage and inhibits new fuel breakdown
-Promotes glycogen synthesis
-Promotes triacylglycerol synthesis
-Suppresses gluconeogenesis
How does insulin stimulate glucose import?
Insulin receptor initiates a signaling cascade with various intracellular effects including the fusion of vesicles containing the GLUT4 transporter, with the plasma membrane.
How does insulin regulate fuel storage?
Insulin signaling activates phosphatases that dephosphorylate both glycogen synthase (activating it) and glycogen phosphorylase (inhibiting it).
What is glucagon?
Glucagon is a small peptide hormone released by the a-cells of the pancreas in response to low blood glucose and opposes the effects of insulin.
How do glucagon and epinephrine regulate fuel metabolism on liver cells?
What do they promote?
Epinephrine and glucagon have similar effects on liver cells (they promote gluconeogenesis and glycogen breakdown).
How do glucagon and epinephrine regulate fuel metabolism on muscle cells?
Muscle cells do not have glucagon receptors or the enzymes for gluconeogenesis. Epinephrine promotes glycolysis and glycogen breakdown.
What is diabetes mellitus?
A disorder of fuel metabolism characterized by high blood glucose.
What is Type 1 diabetes? How is it treated?
Type 1: Autoimmune disease that kills pancreatic B-cells. Treated with insulin injections.
What is Type II diabetes? How is it treated?
Type 2: Insulin resistance. Treated with lifestyle changes, drugs that lower blood glucose, or bariatric surgery.
What are the long term affects of diabetes?
Hyperglycemia leads to long term effects such as cataracts, kidney failure, and cardiovascular damage.
Why is DNA replicated in a semiconservative manner?
In a new DNA helix, 1 strand is old and 1 strand is new.
How is DNA replication intiated?
Proteins associated with a specific DNA sequence called an origin of replication open up an initial replication bubble.
What does the DNA helicase do?
What kind of energy does it use?
Helicase uses ATP to unwind the DNA helix.
What does the Single-strand binding protein (SSB) do?
SSB binds the single-stranded regions to prevent reannealing or nuclease degradation of the DNA.
What does the DNA polymerase do?
DNA polymerase adds deoxynucleotides to the free 3’ OH of an existing strand.
Draw the DNA polymerase mechanism.
What is the main prokaryotic polymerase and how many polymerases does E. coli have?
E. Coli has 5 DNA polymerases. DNA pol III is the main polymerase used for replication.
What is the main eukaryotic polymerase(s) and how many polymerases do humans have?
Humans have at least 14 DNA polymerases. DNA pol S does lagging strand synthesis and DNA pol E does leading strand synthesis.
What happens if DNA polymerase adds an incorrect base?
What direction is it fixed?
Most DNA polymerases have a proofreading function: the polymerase slows down due to the bulge caused by the mispairing and a 3’ to 5’ exonuclease removes the misincorporated nucleotide.
What direction does DNA polymerase run?
5’ to 3’
Why can’t the DNA polymerase extended DNA in the opposite direction (3’ to 5’)?
If you make a mistake an have to remove a group at the 5’ end, there is only 1 phosphate group left which doesn’t leave enough energy to continue polymerization.
What does the primase do?
Introduces a short RNA primer that is complementary to the template strand
What happens to the RNA primers during replicatoin?
A 5’ to 3’ exonuclease (RNase H or DNA pol I) removes the RNA primer from each Okazaki fragment.
What does the DNA ligase do?
DNA ligase forms a phosphodiester bond to join neighboring fragments.
What are telomeres?
The ends of chromosomes adopt special structures called telomeres where a repeating sequence of DNA folds into a loop and binds protective proteins.
What is the end-shortening problem? What is the solution?
Linear DNA gets shorter after a round of replication as the 5’ RNA primer cannot be replaced. Telomerase adds 5’ DNA repeats to the 3’ ends of human DNA.
What is telomerase?
Telomerase is a reverse transcriptase that carries an RNA template that codes for a new repeat while base-pairing with the previous repeat. After a round of replication, the shortened chromosome is missing repetitive DNA rather than essential genetic information.
How is DNA packaged?
What is a nucleosome?
Linear DNA (string) is negatively supercoiled by wrapping the double helix around a core of 8 histones to form a nucleosome (beads).
What is euchromatin?
Lightly packed DNA that is heavily transcribed.
What is heterochromatin?
Tightly packed DNA that is inaccessible for DNA transcription.
What are ways that DNA can be damaged?
DNA is subject to oxidative damage, spontaneous hydrolysis, and methylation.
What is a Guanine –> 8-oxoguanine form of DNA damage?
Caused by reactive oxygen species such as peroxide and results in a G to T transversion.
What is a transversion point mutation?
A transversion is a mutation leading to a switch between purine and pyrimidine.
What is a transition point mutation?
A transition is a purine to purine or pyrimidine to pyrimidine mutation.
How does spontaneous hydrolysis cause an abasic site?
The result of water attaching to the anomeric carbon and clipping off the nitrogenous base.