Regulation of Glycolysis & Gluconeogenesis Flashcards
How is short-term regulation accomplished?
Changes in enzymatic activity
How can the activity of an enzyme be altered? We discussed four ways in lecture.
- Allostery
- Covalent modification
- Substrate concentration change
- Compartmentalization
What is allosteric regulation?
Regulation that occurs as a result of some small molecule that inhibits or activates an enzyme by binding somewhere besides the enzyme’s active site
What types of covalent modifications are common in regulation?
Phosphorylation
Methylation
Acetylation
What amino acid residues are most often targeted for phosphorylation?
Serine
Tyrosine
How does the change in substrate concentration regulate an enzyme’s activity?
When [S] ≤ km a change in substrate concentration will affect the rate
When [S] >>> km changes in substrate concentration are unlikely to affect the rate as it is insensitive to substrate concentration changes
How is long-term regulation accomplished in the cell?
Changing the rate of synthesis and degradation of specific enzymes in the pathway
What do we mean by compartmentalization?
The enzyme and substrate are separated usually via binding to a regulatory protein
What is vmax equal to?
vmax = kcat [E]total
What is kcat?
Catalytic constant
If the enzyme concentration increases, what happens to vmax?
vmax increases
Expression of a gene is controlled by specific sequences in the DNA that are recognized by _________________ ______________.
Transcription factors
To what do transcription factors bind?
Response elements near the promoter
What do transcription factors generall do?
Increase or decrease transcription of a particular gene
_________________________ is also involved in long-term regulation and is associated with the stability of mRNA, translation rate, and protein turnover.
Degradation
The regulation of glycolysis and gluconeogenesis occurs at the three ____________________ steps in the pathways.
Irreversible
In what manner are the three irreversible steps in glycolysis and gluconeogenesis regulated?
A reciprocal manner
The three irreversible steps of glycolysis and gluconeogenesis operate far from or close to equilibrium?
Far from
How are reactions in metabolic pathways that operate near equilibrium regulated?
Changes in substrate and product concentration - Le Chatelier’s Principle
What is the first major point of (enzymatic) regulation discussed in class?
Hexokinase and glucose-6-phosphatase
Which hexokinase is distributed mainly in muscle tissue?
Hexokinase II
What hexokinase is distributed in the liver?
Hexokinase IV or glucokinase
Hexokinase IV is also known as ______________________ and resides in the liver.
Glucokinase
There are several different forms or __________________________ of hexokinase in the human genome; these forms have different affinities for their substrates as well as different regulatory components.
Isozymes
Based on the following Michaelis-Menten plot, what are the approximately km values for hexokinase and glucokinase?
Hexokinase ~ 0.25 mM
Glucogkinase ~6 mM
Hexokinase has a much lower km value for glucose than does glucokinase. Why?
A low km means that an enzyme has a higher affinity for a substrate; in the muscle, we want hexokinase to trap glucose in the cell for usage. This means that we want hexokinase II to have a low km or a high affinity for glucose.
In the liver, we want to release glucose into the bloodstream and thereby maintain blood glucose concentrations. This means that we want glucokinase to have a high km or a low affinity for glucose.
The vmax of hexokinase II occurs at _____ (low or high) concentrations of glucose.
Low
The vmax of glucokinase occurs at _______ (low or high) concentraitons of glucose.
High
Which enzyme - hexokinase II or hexokinase IV/glucokinase - is inhibited by glucokinase regulatory protein?
Glucokinase IV/hexokinase IV
What are the five characteristics of hexokinase II discussed in class?
- Tissue distribution - in muscle (mainly)
- km - ~0.25 mM (glucose)
- vmax - occurs at low concentrations of glucose
- Inhibition by G6P - yes (allostery)
- Inhibition by glucokinase regulatory protein - no