You are the senior biochemist for NextGenSugar Inc, who make artificial sugars.

Question

You are the senior biochemist for NextGenSugar Inc, who make artificial sugars. They have generated several sugar analogs, but they don't know anything about their metabolism. You are tasked with determining how these analogs will contribute to metabolism and whether they will kill people. At your disposal is radioactive labeled (radio-labeled) sugar analogs, mammalian cells that grow in growth medium that you can supplement with these sugars and incubators that allow you to control oxygen availability The first class of compounds you distinguish are those that can enter cells and those that cannot. This is based on incubating cells with sugar analogs and seeing if the cells picked up radioactivity; no radioactivity meant that particular analog was not a substrate for GLUTI transporter. Using the following data, determine which enzymes were unable to utilize the particular sugar analogs and the step of the pathway(s) that is inhibited. . After setting the oxygen levels to 0 in the incubator, you incubate the cells with media containing only individual sugar analogs alone. Of the 55 compounds tested 30 result in all the cells dying. The remaining 25 successfully went through which pathway? If these 25 analogs were radio-labeled, what radio-labeled chemical would be found in the media? 2. Of the 30 compounds that resulted in cell death, 1 was incubated with glucose in the media and caused increased consumption of the glucose, though still little metabolism of the analog. Describe a scenario where this would be the result. Which enzyme is this sugar analog a substrate for and which is it not? 3. You now test the 25 compounds that allowed survival without oxygen in a full oxygen environment. 1 compound, while allowing for full ATP synthesis and cell survival, never allowed cells to divide or grow. What pathway was this analog incapable of participating in. Briefly describe the biochemical and cellular consequences that arose in this situation that led to the observed phenotypes (survival w/o division or growth).

Explanation / Answer

1. The remaining surviving 25 cells went through anaerobic respiration,used anaerobic respiratory electron transport chain.

If these 25 analogs were radio-labeled,lactic acid would be found in the media.

2. In those 30 cells,glucose was incubated with,and as a sugar analog,fructose may be used,resulting in little metabolism of fructose.This sugar analog fructose is a substrate for the enzyme fructokinase and not for the enzyme hexokinase.

3. certain growth factors of survival factors would allow ATP synthesis and cell growth.But they are incapable to participate in cell division pathways. As a consequence,the cell will grow larger in size,and large-sized chromosomes might be formed (such as polytene chromosomes) because of no cell division.

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