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The structure of proteins |
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How proteins functions |
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Proteins as enzymes |
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Substitutions: Alanine generally prefers to
substitute with other small amino acid, Pro, Gly, Ser. |
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Role in structure: Alanine is arguably the most
boring amino acid. It is not particularly hydrophobic and is non-polar.
However, it contains a normal C-beta carbon, meaning that it is generally
as hindered as other amino acids with respect to the conforomations that
the backbone can adopt. For this reason, it is not surprising to see
Alanine present in just about all non-critical protein contexts. |
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Role in function: The Alanine side chain is very
non-reactive, and is thus rarely directly involved in protein function.
However it can play a role in substrate recognition or specificity,
particularly in interactions with other non-reactive atoms such as carbon. |
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Substitutions: As Tyrosine is an aromatic,
partially hydrophobic, amino acid, it prefers substitution with other amino
acids of the same type (see above). It particularly prefers to exchange
with Phenylalanine, which differs only in that it lacks the hydroxyl group
in the ortho position on the benzene ring. |
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Role in function: Unlike the very similar
Phenylalanine, Tyrosine contains a reactive hydroxyl group, thus making it
much more likely to be involved in interactions with non protein
atoms. Like other aromatic amino
acids, Tyrosine can be involved in interactions with non-protein ligands
that themselves contain aromatic groups via stacking interactions. |
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A common role for Tyrosines (and Serines and
Threonines) within intracellular proteins is phosphorylation. Protein
kinases frequently attach phosphates to Tyrosines in order to fascilitate
the signal transduction process. Note that in this context, Tyrosine will
rarely substitute for Serine or Threonine, since the enzymes that catalyse
the reactions (i.e. the protein kinases) are highly specific (i.e. Tyrosine
kinases generally do not work on Serines/Threonines and vice versa) |
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Substitutions: Cysteine shows no preference
generally for substituting with any other amino acid, though it can
tolerate substitutions with other small amino acids. Largely the above
preferences can be accounted for by the extremely varied roles that
Cysteines play in proteins (see below). The substitutions preferences shown
above are derived by analysis of all Cysteines, in all contexts, meaning
that what are really quite varied preferences are averaged and blurred; the
result being quite meaningless. |
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Role in structure: The role of Cysteines in
structure is very dependent on the cellular location of the protein in
which they are contained. Within extracellular proteins, cysteines are
frequently involved in disulphide bonds, where pairs of cysteines are
oxidised to form a covalent bond.
These bonds serve mostly to stabilise the protein structure, and the
structure of many extracellular proteins is almost entirely determined by
the topology of multiple disulphide bonds |
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Structural: Actin is an example it is a major
component of the cells architecture as well as the contractile apparatus |
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Carriers:
Hemoglobin is an example. It
functions to carry O2 to tissue and eliminate CO2 |
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Regulatory: Transcription factors bind to DNA a
control the level of mRNA that is produced |
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Transport: EGFR-epithelial growth factor
receptor. Binds EGF and signals for
cell growth. |
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Binders:
Immunoglobulin proteins or antibodies- bind to foreign proteins and
destroy infectious agents. |
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Muscle cells are formed by fusion of myoblasts |
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Myofibrils are parallel arrays of long cylinders
packed in the muscle cell |
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Sarcomeres are symmetric repeating units from
z-line to z-line in the myofibril |
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Thick filaments are myosin filaments |
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Thin filaments are actin filaments |
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bipolar polymer of myosin |
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myosin tails align and point to center of
sarcomere |
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myosin heads arranged in a helical pattern
pointing away from center |
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myosin heads reach out from the thick filaments
to contact the actin filaments |
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contain ~300 molecules of myosin |
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actin filaments in the sarcomere are of fixed
length |
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actin filaments are cross-linked by a-actinin at
Z-line |
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both ends of actin filaments are capped |
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barbed ends are embedded at the Z-line |
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tropomyosin and troponins bind along each
filament |
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Folding of the actin molecule is represented by
ribbon tracing of the a-carbon atoms. N and C correspond to the amino- and
carboxyl-terminals, respectively. The letters followed by numbers represent
amino acids in the polypeptide chain. A hypothetical vertical line divides
the actin molecule into two domains "large", left side, and
"small", right side. ATP and Ca2+ are located between the two
domains. These two domains can be
subdivided further into two subdomains each, the small domain being
composed of subdomains 1 and 2, and the
2 has significantly less mass than the other three subdomains and
this is the reason of dividing actin into small and large domains). The
four subdomains are held together and stabilized mainly by salt bridges and
hydrogen bonds to the phosphate groups of the bound ATP and to its
associated Ca2+ localized in the center of the molecule. |
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1. Where
does it polymerize with actin? |
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2. Where
does it interact with troponin and tropomyosin? |
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3. Where
does it interact with myosin? |
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4. How
could we answer this question? |
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1.
Attach myosin S1 on the cover slip |
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2. Add
fluorescently tagged actin filament |
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3.
Addition of ATP initiates the movement of the filaments |
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4. Also
done by coating cover slip with actin filaments and use fluorescently
tagged myosin motor domain |
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There are 6 major classes of enzymes: |
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1.Oxidoreductases, which are involved in oxidation, reduction, and
electron or proton transfer reactions; |
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2.Transferases, catalyzing reactions in which groups are
transferred; |
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3.Hydrolases that cleave various covalent bonds by hydrolysis; |
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4.Lyases catalyze reactions forming or breaking double bonds; |
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5.Isomerases catalyze isomerization reactions; |
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6.Ligases join constituents together covalently. |
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There are 6 major classes of enzymes: |
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1.Oxidoreductases which are involved in oxidation, reduction, and
electron or proton transfer reactions; |
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2.Transferases, catalysing reactions in which groups are
transferred; |
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3.Hydrolases which cleave various covalent bonds by hydrolysis; 4 |
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4.Lyases catalyse reactions forming or breaking double bonds; |
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5.Isomerases catalyse isomerisation reactions; |
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6.Ligases join substituents together covalently. |
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Enzymes are protein catalysts that, like all
catalysts, speed up the rate of a chemical reaction without being used up
in the process. |
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the concentration of substrate molecules (the
more of them available, the quicker the enzyme molecules collide and bind
with them). The concentration of substrate is designated [S] and is
expressed in unit of molarity. |
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the
temperature. As the temperature rises, molecular motion - and hence
collisions between enzyme and substrate - speed up. But as enzymes are
proteins, there is an upper limit beyond which the enzyme becomes denatured
and ineffective. |
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the presence of inhibitors. |
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competitive inhibitors are molecules that bind
to the same site as the substrate - preventing the substrate from binding
as they do so - but are not changed by the enzyme. |
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noncompetitive inhibitors are molecules that
bind to some other site on the enzyme reducing its catalytic power. |
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pH. The conformation of a protein is influenced
by pH and as enzyme activity is crucially dependent on its conformation,
its activity is likewise affected. |
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We set up a series of tubes containing graded
concentrations of substrate, [S] . At time zero, we add a fixed amount of
the enzyme preparation. |
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Over
the next few minutes, we measure the concentration of product formed. If
the product absorbs light, we can easily do this in a spectrophotometer. |
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Early in the run, when the amount of substrate is in substantial
excess to the amount of enzyme, the rate we observe is the initial velocity of Vi. |
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Plotting Vi as a function of [S], we find that |
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At low values of [S], the initial velocity,Vi,
rises almost linearly with increasing [S]. |
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But as [S] increases, the gains in Vi level off
(forming a rectangular hyperbola). |
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The
asymptote represents the maximum velocity of the reaction, designated Vmax |
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The
substrate concentration that produces a Vi that is one-half of Vmax is
designated the Michaelis-Menten
constant, Km(named after the scientists who developed the study of enzyme
kinetics). |
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Km is (roughly) an inverse measure of the
affinity or strength of binding between the enzyme and its substrate. The
lower the Km, the greater the affinity (so the lower the concentration of
substrate needed to achieve a given rate). |
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Enzymes can be inhibited competitively, when the
substrate and inhibitor compete for binding to the same active site or noncompetitively,
when the inhibitor binds somewhere else on the enzyme molecule reducing its
efficiency. |
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The distinction can be determined by plotting
enzyme activity with and without the inhibitor present. |
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Competitive Inhibition |
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In the presence of a competitive inhibitor, it
takes a higher substrate concentration to achieve the same velocities that |
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were reached in its absence. So while Vmax can
still be reached if sufficient substrate is available, one-half Vmax
requires a higher [S] than before and thus Km is larger. |
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With noncompetitive inhibition, enzyme molecules
that have been bound by the inhibitor are taken out of the game so enzyme
rate (velocity) is reduced for all values of [S], including Vmax and
one-half Vmax but |
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Km
remains unchanged because the active site of those enzyme molecules that
have not been inhibited is unchanged. |
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