The following exercises are available in this section
Vitamin C and collagen synthesis
By the end of this exercise you should be able to:
- Describe and explain the processes involved in post-synthetic modifications that lead to the formation of mature collagen
- Explain the role of vitamin C in collagen synthesis.
A problem of bleeding cows and chickens, rat poison and patients with thrombosis - the role of vitamin K in blood clotting
By the end of this exercise you should be able to:
- Describe the role of vitamin K in the post-synthetic modification of preprothrombin
- Explain the action of Warfarin as an anticoagulant
- Explain how a high intake of vitamin K antagonises the anticoagulant activity of Warfarin
- Describe a simple method of assessing vitamin K nutritional status
Primary hyperoxaluria and kidney stones
By the end of this exercise you should be able to:
- Describe the enzyme defect in primary hyperoxaluria (type I)
- Explain the different mutations that give rise to the three main types of primary hyperoxaluria (type I)
- Explain the importance of glycine oxidase and alanine-glycine transaminase in overall amino acid and N metabolism
- Describe the mitochondrial targeting sequence of an enzyme
- Explain how a point mutation in the gene for alanine-glycine transaminase can lead to mistarheting of the enzyme, resulting in primary hyperoxaluria