CHAPTER 5:CELL SIGNALING IN PHYSIOLOGY

SECTION A: MEMBRANE POTENTIALS

STUDY UNIT 1: CONTROLS OF CELLS THROUGH CHEMICAL MESSENGERS

5.1.1 RECEPTORS
Several classes of chemical messengers that can communicate a sigal
from one cell to another!

*Molecules
-Examples such as neurotransmitter and paracrine.
-Whose signals are mediated rapidly and over a short distances.

*hormones
-communicate over greater distancee and more slowly.

5.1.2 How can signals of chemical mesengers be detected by the cell

receiving the signal?

5.1.2.1. The cell receiving the signals has a way to detect other signals
presences.
5.1.2.2. Once the cell detects the signal, a mechanism is required to translate
that signal into physiologically meaningful response,such as the cell
division
response to the delivery of growth-promoting signals.

5.1.3 FIRST STEP IN THE ACTION OF ANY INTERCELLULAR (between cells) CHEMICAL
MESSENGERS

1.RECEPTORS (Protein Receptor):Binding of chemical messenger to specific target-

cell proteins. Example:ligand s the chemical messenger and the receptor has a
binding site for that ligand.
2.The binding of a messenger to a receptor changes the conformation (tertiary
structure)of the receptor which activates it.
3. This indicates a sequence of events in the cell leading tothe messenger process
called sgnal transduction.

Signal: is the receptor activation.

Transduction signal: denotes the process by which a stimulus is transformed into a
response.

5.1.4 Types of receptors

5.1.4.1 Plasma Membrane Receptors

-They are transmembrane proteins ( they span the entire memrane thickness)
-Has a hydropobic segments within the membrane
-one or more hydrophillic segments extending out from the membrane into the
extracellular fluid and other hydrophillic segments extending into the
intracellular fluid.
-Arriving chemicals bind to the extracellular part of the receptors,the
intracellular regions of the receptors are involved into signal transduction
events.

5.1.4.2 Intracellular (within in cell) Receptor

-They are not located in the membrane but exist eitherin the cytosol or the cell
nucleus and have different structures.
- Like plasma membrane,receptors, theyhave segment that binds the messenger and
other segments that acts as regulatory sites.
-Have a segment that binds to DNA, unlike plasma membrane receptors.

5.1.4.3 One key destinction between the 2 general types of receptors

-Plasma membrane receptors can transduce signals without DNA.
-Intracellular receptors transduce signals through interaction with genes.

5.1.5 Interactions between Receptors and ligands

4 Major features that define the interactions between receptors and ligands