By Rachel Ehernberg
October 6th, 2012
Summary
Scientists who examined the network of a cell’s metabolic reactions find that loyal proteins, proteins that stick to one task, have important, high-stress jobs. However, their multitasking counterparts, which deal with various chemical reactions, carry out less crucial life tasks.
Revealing where the generalists and specialists perform their tasks in a metabolic network could help scientists identify starter enzymes for designing new drugs, fuels and other chemical products. It also may help biologists create organisms from scratch.
Enzymes act on substrates. For more than 100 years, it seemed that enzymes were extremely loyal to their substrates. But the growing number of multi-tasking enzymes that interact with multiple substrates and carry out multiple reactions have forced scientists to face the fact that all enzymes aren’t as dedicated as they've seemed. Researchers have discovered that in addition to catalyzing reactions essential for life, the loyal enzymes tended to work at very active major channels in the network. Enzymes that deal with trivial matters, though, can afford to take on other tasks. Those enzymes are not unimportant; enzymes tasked with recognizing and breaking down toxic substances serve the cell better if they can recognize and deal with more than one kind of danger.
Relevance
In class we have learned about macromolecules, specifically proteins. One type of protein is the enzyme, which is the main catalyst of chemical reactions in organisms. However, we read that enzymes catalyze only one specific type of chemical reactions, because the shape of each enzyme fits the shape of one substrate. The article also relates to metabolism- chemical reactions in the body- which we have studied closely.
Are these enzymes present in human cells? Are they present in plant and animal cells?
ReplyDeleteThe enzymes are present in bacterium, such as E.coli. I wasn't able to directly find out if they were found in plant and animal cells. However, I read that there is a multitasking enzyme that deals with making vitamin B12, which is a vitamin that has to do with the human brain. I also read that scientists are attempting to understand how the activities of these types of enzymes contribute to diseases like leukemia and brain tumor, so I'm assuming that these enzymes are present in human cells.
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