Question 6 You and your G-protein coupled receptors o You have encountered G-pro

Question

Question 6 You and your G-protein coupled receptors o You have encountered G-protein coupled receptors in Intro Bio I lecture (or soon will), and will encounter them briefly again in Intro Bio II. You will spend 2 or 3 lectures on them in Cell Bio. They are integral (transmembrane) proteins embedded in the plasma membrane of every eukaryotic cell in your body. We will treat them as being 50 Angstroms in diameter. Considering the plasma membrane scaled up to the 4 inch baseline of the worked example in the lab powerpoint, how large would the G-protein coupled receptor be? Can you give a example of a familiar object that would be about this size?

Explanation / Answer

The G-protein coupled receptors or GPCR are membrane bound receptor proteins which span the plasma membrane nearly 7 times. According to the information, if the plasma membrane is considered to be 4 inches in diameter, the length of GPCR will be at least 7*4 = 28 inch. Thus, the protein structure is very large and an increase in surface area is achieved by multiple foldings of the secondary structure.

This large size of the protein can be compared to more than a feet long scale, such as larger than the size of a shoe-box.

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