Practice problems to be discussed in Wednesday’s

synchronous class on protein function

Q-1

The figure above illustrates the first step in an enzymatic hydrolysis reaction. Based on your general
understanding of enzymes, which of the following is/are true?

A. The enzyme in this reaction will increase the delta G of the reaction.
B. Once the enzymatic reaction is complete and the products are released, the active site of the
enzyme will no longer be able to recognize substrate A.
C. The hydrolysis reaction will likely be associated with an increase in entropy or disorder.
D. The interaction with substrate “A” is expected to be mediated by covalent bonds such as
disulfide bridges.
E. If this enzymatic reaction ran in reverse it would be a condensation reaction associated with a
decrease in entropy.
Q-2

What happens when one enzyme in the pathway does not work?
Q-3 The diagram below illustrates the multi-step enzymatic pathway in yeast that results in the synthesis of the
adenine nucleotide. The pathway starts with a molecule indicated as PRPP and ends with the product
adenine. Each arrow indicates an enzyme reaction that is catalyzed by a specific enzyme whose name is
specified in italics above the arrow. Each enzyme is produced by a gene with the same name as the
enzyme. For example, the ADE4 enzyme is encoded by the ADE4 gene. During the lecture you were shown
a picture of yeast colonies growing on an agar plate. You learned that yeast cells with a loss of function
mutation in the ADE 2 gene (i.e. they do not make the ADE-2 enzyme) make pink/red colonies on agar
plates compared to the wildtype yeast which make white or colorless colonies. Which of the following is/are
true?

A.PRPP is the substrate for the ADE4 enzyme.

B. PRFG is the product of the ADE 8 enzyme.
C. The ADE2 mutant is not able to convert AIR to CAIR.
D. If the ADE2 mutant colonies were grown in media containing CAIR, the
colonies would produce adenine.
E. If the ADE2 mutant colonies were grown in media containing CAIR, the
colonies would no longer be red.
Q-4 Imagine that the adenine biosynthetic pathway (described above) is regulated
such that when the cell has an abundance of adenine, the biosynthetic pathway
is shut down. This is an example of feedback inhibition. One way the cell could
achieve this would be to have the first enzyme in the biosynthetic pathway
(ADE4) under allosteric regulation by adenine (i.e. the product of the pathway).
The diagram at right is a generalized representation of how this might be
achieved. Which of the following is/are true of this scenario?

A. Adenine likely associates with the ADE4 enzyme via covalent

bonds.
B. When adenine binds the ADE4 enzyme, the protein changes
conformation.
C. Adenine is the substrate for the ADE4 enzyme.
D. When adenine binds the ADE4 enzyme it enhances the ability of
the enzyme to binds its substrate.
E. In this scenario, adenine is considered a ligand of the ADE4 enzyme.