You have recently been hired by a research team that studies cystic fibrosis (CF

Question

You have recently been hired by a research team that studies cystic fibrosis (CF), a fatal disorder that clogs the lungs and other organs with a viscous, sticky mucous that interferes with breathing and digestion. The leader of your research team has informed you that a major fraction of the mucous in CF patients consists of filamentous actin. His hypothesis is that this actin may play a key role in interfering with breathing and digestion in CF patients. In order to test your laboratory skills and knowledge he decides to give you a quiz.

Your first assignment is to assemble actin monomers into filaments. In a test tube you mix actin monomers with KCl, MgCl2, and ATP and then measure filament assembly

Your boss immediately notices that there is a lag phase before actin filaments can be detected and that the “%actin in filaments” plateaus at less than 100%.

1.Explain the lag phase and why the percent of actin in filaments peaks at a value less than 100%

Explanation / Answer

The lag is likely caused by the fact that the actin filaments need to get acquianted or associated with the media in your test tube. This requires time as during the initial phase, maybe the actin filaments build up and then dissolve back down into monomers because it isn't stable enough and hasn't equilibrated with the surroundings. It peaks at less than 100% because it either runs out of materials to make more, or runs out of room. at nearly 100%, everything is going to be cramp packed so the little space left inbetween will trap air as movement of actin monomers through solution will be minimal if at all

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