BIOC 406 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Aspartic Protease, Glutamate Dehydrogenase, Chymotrypsinogen
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This is very important because nitrogen is a very scarce resource, so organisms usually try to avoid using it for fuel to create energy. This is why there is a lot of recycling going on. Amino acids contain nitrogen (proteins are degraded during starvation for energy) No real storage form of nitrogen (vs. fats and glycogen) Organisms need a consistent dietary intake of nitrogen to maintain balance. For energy metabolism: think of amino acids as a carbon skeleton with an a- You have an amino acid l-glutamate, you deaminate it with glutamate dehydrogenase to leave a carbon skeleton that can then be fed into energy metabolism. The ammonium cation can also be further metabolized. 3 ways to degrade proteins into amino acids: (1) digestive enzymes (external intake, when you eat you degrade proteins) (2) lysosome (digestive cell organelle) (3) ubiquitin-proteasome system (selective degradation) -> (4) synthesis from metabolic precursors (in later lectures)
