Monday, November 12, 2012

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Enzymes - facts

After studying a standard textbook, come here for revision. If you find some new helpful information here, i will be happy !

RNA was an early biocatalyst before proteins.
Fastest acting enzyme - Carbonic anhydrase; Kcat is 106 moles per second.
Kcat  of DMP decarboxylase is 39 moles per second.
Selective stabilization of high energy transition state is done by enzymes.
Km - [Substrate] @  ½ Vmax
Hill equation is used for kinetics not obeying michaelis menton equation eg. Ligand interactions like Hemoglobin.
Serine kinase acts on serine while Serine protease acts by serine. 
Increasing the enzyme concentration won't affect Km.  It is a constant for each enzyme.
Most allosteric enzymes are made up of subunits.
Urease needs Nickel. 
Only the rate of reaction not the equilibrium is affected by enzymes. 
Transition state has higher free energy than substrate or product. 

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Amino Acid Chemistry Questions

  • Name the Beta and gamma amino acids in the body.
  • Name the aminoacids or aminoacid derivatives acting as neurotransmitters
  • What are the component aminoacids of the artificial sugar Asparteme ?
  • What is the direction to write primary structure of aminoacid ?
  • What is catalytic triad ?
  • Name the SH group containing amino acid(s) ?
  • Why proline and glycine distrupts alpha helix ?
  • Name the 21st amino acid ? 
  • What is the codon coding for that ?
  • Name the proteins containing this amino acid.
  • Name the 22nd amino acid ?
  • Name the amino acids present in Creatine, Glutathione
Always refer standard textbooks for answers or just google the question ! (select the question, right click and select search google for "   " )

Know the difference

Most of the times, we take things for granted. Go through the alphabetical list given below and think of the difference between them.  

  • Active site, Allosteric site
  • Anomer, Epimer, Enantiomer, Tautomer
  • Bile salt, Bilepigment
  • Bisphosphate, Diphosphate
  • Coenzyme, prosthetic group
  • Competitive inhibition, Non- Competitive inhibition
  • D- glucose, d-glucose
  • Domain, Motif
  • Glucokinase, Hexokinase
  • Gulonic acid, Gluconic acid, Glucoric acid, Glutaric acid, Glutamic acid
  • Heparin, Heparan sulfate
  • Inulin, Insulin
  • Keratin, Keratan sulfate
  • Ligase, Lyase
  • Missense, Nonsense mutation
  • Mitochondrial DNA, Nuclear DNA
  • mRNA, mi RNA
  • Phosphatase, Phosphorylase
  • Pseudopeptide, Isopeptide
  • Renin, Rennin
  • Ribosome, Ribozyme
  • Serine kinase, Serine protease
  • Synthase, Synthetase


I will keep on updating this list. So come often to this page.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Self explanatory medical terms - Medical Etymology

                                   


                 Most of the medical terms are self explanatory. You have to just know some Greek and Latin. Shall we start ?


Acro 


Acro means tip.
Acrosome is an  organelle in the tip of sperm.
Acrocentric chromosome is a chromosome in which centromere is near the tip of chromosome. e.g. Y chromosome.
Acromion is in the tip of scapula.
Acrobat is a person who can walk in heights with tip-toe.
Acromegaly is a condition in which a person is tall and mega sized. (megaly)

Colors (Chromo)
Erythro is Red. Erythrocyte is red blood cell. Erythropsia means Red vision. (opsia - optics - vision)
Eryhroderma is red skin. 
Cyano is blue. 
Xantho is yellow. (xanthopsia)
Albus is white. (Albumin) (Albinism - tyrosine kinase defeciency)
Chloro is green. (chlorophyll)

Learn the meanings of prefixes like endo, exo, dys, meta, iso, allo and the suffixes like oma, osis, blast, plasia, genesis etc.,

You can find the meaning of all the above in etymology section of dictionaries like Taber's Medical Dictionary. 

Then try to find out the meaning of every time you come across. If you are reading the word myeloma, split it into myelo and oma. Myelo means marrow. Oma means tumor. So myeloma is a tumor of bone marrow. Myeloblast is a germ cell in bone marrow. Do this fruitful exercise. This will really help you.


Here are some good external links:
Click Here To understand anatomy terms