PHYS30005 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Gluconeogenesis, Threonine, Pyruvic Acid
13 Aug 2020
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Document Summary
Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Proteins are a string of amino acids and then folded. Each amino acid has its own specific metabolism. Essential aa: leucine, isoleucine, valine, phenylalanine, threonine, methionine, lysine, tryptophan, histidine, asparagine. Non-essential aa: can be readily produced within the human body (in adequate amounts: alanine, arginine, aspartate, cysteine, glutamate, glutamine, glycine, proline, serine, tyrosine. Glucose broken down by glycolysis -> produces acetyl-coa -> enters tca cycle. Cannot just increase utilization of glucose and fatty acids to produce acetyl coa - you require oxaloacetate. Amino acid metabolism can produce some of the intermediates of the tca cycle (eg. Alpha-ketoglutarate: therefore first reaction in the cycle can occur at a higher rate. Use of pyruvate coupled with glutamate to produce alpha-ketoglutarate. Diff aas produce diff intermediates in cycle. During exercise, glutamate concentrations go down and alanine concentrations go up.
