Intro to Amino Acid Catabolism - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems
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Intro to Amino Acid Catabolism Concept 1
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Hey, everyone. So in this video, we're gonna talk about amino acid metabolism here, we're going to say that excess amino acids travel to the liver for metabolism when our amino acid concentration exceeds protein synthesis requirements. Here, we're going to say the amino group is excreted because it cannot be stored and it can't be stored because it's actually toxic to our bodies. On the other hand, when it comes to the carbon atom that can be stored and used for energy. Now, here we're going to say the amino acid metabolism has two phases in phase one. We say the amino group is removed and taken to the urea cycle to be excreted from the body. If we take a look here, we have our amino acid, we're talking about our phase one here, we're talking about our amino group. And when it comes to amino group, we're gonna say that it can be converted into the ammonium ion. So remember, ammonium is NH four positive and that ties into the urea cycle. We're also gonna say that not all of the amino acid group or the amino group is excreted in the form of the ammonium ion through urea cycle. Some of it is used to create nitrogen compounds within our bodies. This includes hormones, nu- uh nucleotides and also other non-essential amino acids. Here, when it comes to our phase two, we're gonna say the carbon skeleton of amino acid is used to make energy producing intermediates. So over here, we're talking about phase two in relation to our carbon skeleton here, this ties into the citric acid cycle, which can also be connected to our gluconeogenesis where we have the creation of sugar. We also have ketogenesis, which is the creation of ketone bodies. So just remember when it comes to amino acids, we can talk about phase one, dealing with the amino group or we can talk about phase two, which deals with our carbon skeleton.
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Intro to Amino Acid Catabolism Example 1
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Which statement best describes the fate of excess amino acids. So, amino acids travel to the kidneys and are excreted in the urine here. That's not true. We know that excess amino acids they will travel to the liver. So this does not work. Amino acids are stored in the liver for later use as energy when it comes to the carbon skeleton, but not the amino group. Again. Remember the amino group is toxic to our bodies. We're gonna say that some of it is excreted as ammonium ion through the urea cycle and some of it helps to create other types of nitrogen compounds within our body that we need to utilize. So like nucleotides, other non-essential amino acids as well as hormones, carbon skeletons are converted to citric acid cycle intermediates and then back to amino acids when needed here. That is not the fate of our excess amino acid. So this doesn't work. Amino groups of amino acids are removed and converted to urea. Yes, part of the urea cycle, some of it will be converted into urea through the urea cycle. Some of it will be converted into nitrogen compounds here. This statement is true. So out of all the options, option D is our final answer.