Enzyme inhibition Alcohol dehydrogenase. Alcohols were used as antifreeze in aut
ID: 908403 • Letter: E
Question
Enzyme inhibition
Alcohol dehydrogenase.
Alcohols were used as antifreeze in automobiles. A group of kids were hanging out in a friends garage. One of them found two bottles of liquid that were marked alcohol.A man talked everyone else into trying the alcohol. All of the kids became severely ill, but about half of the teens died from poisoning. Someone later found out that one of the bottles contained methanol and the other a mixture of ethanol and methanol. The kids who lived drank the mixture.
The enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, catalyzes the first oxidation step in the case of both ethanol and methanol. Methanol is a very common solvent that is quite toxic. A few years ago there was the largest mass methanol poisoning reported to date. It occurred in Nicaragua. Of the approximately 800 poisonings, about 45 patients died and others suffered blindness. The poisoned patients received either ethanol or a drug called Fomepizole as an antidote.
Questions
1. Write the structure of the products for the oxidation of both methanol and ethanol. Name those products.
2. What type of enzyme inhibition is taking place in the grandfather's story?
3. Explain why some of the teenagers in the story died and the others did not.
4. Give two specific different reasons why ethanol is usually recommended to treat methanol poisoning.
5. How might someone become poisoned by methanol today? (Hint: Think daily household products!)
Explanation / Answer
1) The oxidation of methanol and ethanol will give us methanoic acid and ethanoic acid.
HCOOH and CH3COOH
2) As we know that methanol is a toxic one . The mixture on oxidation converts into acid which was the real cause of the adverse effects
3)Some of the students didnt die just because of the medicine ether alcohol which hinders the toxicity of the formation
4) Ethanol is used in methanol poisonng just because it will form an ether with the mixture present and will not allow the adverse effects to happen
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