Thursday, February 23, 2012
What knowledge have you connected with past knowledge?
"Structure determines function" is an important phrase that has been said in many biology classes. Most evidence of this is studied in diseases that are caused by denatured and misfolded proteins. For example Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's and Parkinson's are a result of misfolded proteins. This means that the code for a specific protein on the genetic sequence was not normal which resulted in a disease. The structure of the protein was altered and the function of that protein changed to cause harm in the body. Other examples may include the denature of enzymes which causes them to not do their job and not bind to their specific substrate. This would also cause the body to loose the ability to catalyze a reaction. The active site on a denatured enzyme is not normal therefore the substrate can not bind to it which would change the enzymes function.
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I definitely agree that 'structure determines function' has been said is every science class I've taken. It is interesting to see the progression in what we've learned throughout the years about what it really means. Each year we go into more depth and learn something new about it. Thinking back to just biology it was such a broad overview of that and now in biochemistry we are seeing the same thing with much more detail.
ReplyDeleteYes we do go more in depth each year and learn how and why certain processes happen. It all begins with general biology and chemistry now biochemistry all together. It is very interesting to combine two subjects together because each brings their own uniqueness to a topic.
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