Look What I Can Do
Hey he owes me a lot. If it wasn't for me, cysteine wouldn't have a sulfur atom.
Who is methionine?
Don't make a face when you have to eat these. They are our major source of dietary folate.
What are leafy green vegetables?
It acts as the main shuttle that carries carbon units derived primarily from amino acids (like serine and glycine) in the cytoplasm and mitochondria.
What is tetrahydrofolate (FH4)?
Although my name, intrinsic factor, is pretty bland, I do something pretty important?
What is assist in the absorption of vitamin B12 by the gut?
During these conditions is when S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) is shunted to the production of glutathione.
What is when SAM levels are high and the cell is under oxidative stress?
Maybe the rest of the amino acids need the TCA cycle. Not us!!! We can all be synthesized from intermediates of glycolysis.
Who are glycine, serine, cysteine, and alanine?
My job is to convert alanine and ketoglutarate to pyruvate and glutamate, but I can also tell you if your liver is functioning well.
What is alanine aminotransferase (ALT)?
It moves single carbon atoms from nutrients to help form other biomolecules, regulate gene expression, and protect cells from oxidation through the formation of glutathione.
Why is one-carbon metabolism important to the body?
I am sometimes called "the Amazon of the folate/methionine cycle".
What is vitamin B12?
This molecule directly transfers methyl (-CH3) groups to hundreds of substrates to create or modify molecules such as DNA, RNA, proteins, lipids, and others.
What is S-adenosylmethionine (SAM)?
I have a split personality. Sometimes I am ketogenic, sometimes I am gluconeogenic.
What do you call an amino acid that can be converted to ketone bodies or glucose?
If you have PKU, don't ingest foods with aspartame in them. This organ breaks it down into phenylalanine.
What is the gut?
The large amounts of this amino acid blocks other amino acids from getting to the brain causing intellectual disability and other brain disorders seen in PKU.
What is phenylalanine?
This molecule inhibits dihydrofolate reductase, preventing the conversion of dihydrofolate (FH2) to tetrahydrofolate (FH4)?
What is methotrexate?
Genetic mutations in this enzyme are associated with neural tube defects.
What is N5,N10-methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR)?
The three musketeers of cofactors uses in the metabolism of amino acids.
Who are pyridoxal phosphate, tetrahydrofolate, and tetrahydrobiopterin?
Although most people associate the urea cycle with throwing things out, this amino acid is made in the urea cycle.
What is arginine?
The source of maple syrup urine disease.
What is the inability to breakdown branched chain amino acids such as leucine, isoleucine, and valine?
This amino acid is the major carbon source that donates a carbon group to tetrahydrofolate (THF or FH4) to form N5,N10-methylene tetrahydrofolate.
What is serine?
This term descirbes the process by which gene expression is regulated by the addition of methyl groups to nucleotides or histone proteins?
What is epigenetics?
It's not glyoxylate's fault you have a kidney stone. It all started with the breakdown of this amino acid.
What is glycine?
While methionine, threooine, isoleucine, and valine enter the TCA cycles at succinyl CoA, these two amino acids form ketobutyrate along the way to becoming succinyl CoA.
Who are methionine and threonine?
Some neural tube defects are a result of this lack of nutrient.
What is folate?
The term used to describe the process in which a methyl group cannot be transferred to homocysteine resulting in a buildup of N5-methyl tetrahydrofolate.
What is the methyl-trap hypothesis?
I am sorry Dr. Veenstra. That "needles and pins" feeling you have been experiencing is from a lack of vitamin B12 causing this condition.
What is hyperhomocysteinemia?