Study Guide for Exam 2

As usual, I do not expect you to know all the names of enzymes and every intermediate molecule in a pathway. You should be able to draw the structures and know which cofactors are involved.

My exams never simply test how well/much you can memorize & regurgitate. They are also designed to test how much you understand. That is, the WHY of things, the implications of the way things work in biochemical pathways, how things are integrated in the cell, etc.

You should know:

Ch. 20 (+ some of 15)

Rubisco (mechanism of carboxylation and oxygenation)

C-shuffling reactions: Transketolase & Transaldolase

Calvin cycle - reductive pentose-Pi pathway

(photorespiration and Rubisco specificity)

C3 vs. C4 metabolism (Hatch-Slack pathway)

(Oxidative pentose phosphate pathway)

(triose/Pi transport)

NOT covered: glycolate pathway (in detail), starch and sucrose synthesis

Ch. 21

Acetyl-CoA carboxylase

Fatty acid synthase (mechanism)

(FA desaturation)

Synthesis of triacylglycerols and glycerophospholipids

NOT covered: ether lipids, sterols, isoprenoids, lipid transport (in the body), sphingolipids, headgroup synthesis, salvage and joining to phospholipids

Ch. 22

Nitrogenase

Glutamine synthetase & glutamate synthase (regulation)

Glutamine amidotransferases (mechanism)

Amino acid synthesis:

Pro & Arg synthesis

Asp & Asn synthesis

Gly & Ser synthesis

Cys & Met metabolism

(Salvage pathways: Pro -> Arg, Met -> Cys, Phe -> Tyr)

Pyrimidine synthesis ( -> OMP -> UMP -> UTP, CTP)

Purine synthesis ( -> IMP -> AMP, GMP)

Ribonucleotide reductase (mechanism)

Thymidylate synthase (but not the mechanism)

NOT covered: branched-chain amino acid (Val, Ile, Leu) synthesis, S incorporation, aromatic amino acid synthesis, His, Lys, glutathione, porphyrins, catabolism and salvage of purines & pyrimidines,

Chapters 12/13

Transporters & pumps

Ion electrochemical gradients in the cell (how they are arranged, and how they can be used)

Channels: mechanisms of specificity and gating

Nervous transmission

Acetylcholine-gated Na⁺ channel

Voltage-gated Na⁺ channel

Action potential and synaptic transmission

Tyrosine kinase receptors

General mechanism

Insulin pathway

Serpentine receptors & G proteins

General mechanism

PLC/PKC pathway

Epinephrine pathway

Vision & smell

[Items in bold are more important. Those in (parentheses) are less. But anything on this list is fair game.]