nitrogen metabolism Flashcards
what are the variants of nitrogen balance?
Positive Balance: during growing/pregnancy, more nitrogen is taken in then excreted.
Negative Balance: more nitrogen excreted than ingested in times of fasting, trauma, malnutrition.
what are essential amino acids?
must be taken in via diet as the body cannot synthesize their carbon structure.
what are non-essential amino acids?
can make enough of these amino acids
what are conditional essential amino acids?
The body can make some amino acids only in a certain amount. These are essential in the diet only in times of insignificant amounts
what can tyrosine be metabolised to?
melanin, dopamine, adrenaline, noradrenaline, thyroxine
what can tryptophan be metabolised to?
serotonin, melatonin
what can histidine be metabolised too?
histamine
what is transamination?
amino transfer between an amino acid and keto acid to form another amino acid and keto acid
how is pyruvate converted to alanine?
addition of an amino group
how is glutamate converted to alpha ketoglutarate?
removal of an amino group
how is oxaloacetate converted to aspartate?
addition of an amino group
what are glucogenic amino acids?
amino acid that can be converted into glucose through gluconeogenesis
give examples of glucogenic amino acids?
alanine, aspartate, glutamine/glutamate
what are ketogenic amino acids?
an amino acid that can be degraded directly into acetyl-CoA (precursor of ketone bodies)
why is ammonia toxic?
basic and interrupts pH systems within the body
reactive
