Our Lady of Fatima University

BSN-17 Biochemistry
HW – Fatty acid metabolism
By Christian Earl Aragon

1. How much energy, in the form of ATP, is obtained from b-oxidation of 1 mol of linoleic
acid?
- The amount of ATP obtained from fatty acid oxidation depends on the size of the fatty acid
being oxidized. For our purposes here. we’ll study palmitic acid, a saturated fatty acid with
16 carbon atoms, as a typical fatty acid in the human diet. Calculating its energy yield
provides a model for determining the ATP yield of all other fatty acids.

The complete degradation of 1 mol of palmitic acid requires the β-oxidation reactions to be
repeated seven times. Thus, 7 mol of NADH and 7 mol of FADH 2 are produced. Reoxidation
of these compounds through respiration yields 2.5–3 and 1.5–2 mol of ATP, respectively.
The energy calculations can be summarized as follows:

1 mol of ATP is split to AMP and 2Pi -2 ATP

8 mol of acetyl-CoA formed (8 x 12) 96 ATP
7 mol of FADH₂ formed (7 x 2) 14 ATP
7 mol of NADH formed (7 x 3) 21 ATP
Total 129 ATP

https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Organic_Chemistry/Map
%3A_Essential_Organic_Chemistry_(Bruice)/18%3A_The_Organic_Chemistry_of_Metabolic_Pathways/
18.3%3A_The_Catabolism_of_Fats

2. What would be the metabolic consequences of cells not expressing LDL receptors
- Insufficiency of LDL receptors might lead to build up or increase in level of plasma
cholesterol and therefore, it will increase the process of atherosclerosis

3. Vitamin D3 is derived from cholesterol, how and in which tissues does conversion occur?
- The production of vitamin D3 from 7-dehydrocholesterol in the epidermis. Sunlight (the
ultraviolet B component) breaks the B ring of the cholesterol structure to form pre- D3. Pre-
D3 then undergoes a thermal induced rearrangement to form D3.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK278935/#:~:text=The%20production%20of%20vitamin
%20D3,induced%20rearrangement%20to%20form%20D3.