Glycogen Synthase Essay

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BCHM210 Assignment 2 Essay: Glycogen Synthase By: Fiona MacDiarmid Student Number: 220065919 Word Count: 768 Due Date: 08/04/2011 Introduction Glycogen synthase is an enzyme that is involved in the transformation of glucose to glycogen. Glucose polymers are short which are transformed into polymers that are long during this process (Wikipedia, 2011). There are two different glycogen synthase protein families. The GT3 family is the first, which is produced in yeast and mammals. It is around 80kDa (Wikipedia, 2011). This family uses a sugar donor called UDP – glucose and phosphorylation along with ligand binding to help regulation. The second family is the GT5 protein group. This group forms in bacteria and plants and it is approximately 50kDa. The sugar donor for GT5 is ADP – glucose and is unregulated, which means they do not require phosphorylation and ligand binding (Wikipedia, 2011). This essay will cover the function and structure of glycogen synthase and the relationship between the two different areas. Function of Glycogen synthase Glycogen synthase plays a key role biologically in controlling glucose and glycogen levels. It is triggered by the enzyme phosphorylation. In people, glycogen synthase has two paralogous isozymes (Wikipedia, 2011). Glycogen synthase 1 is widely expressed throughout muscles and other tissue while glycogen synthase 2 is confined in the liver. The control of glycogen synthase helps regulate glucose storage and glycogen metabolism (Wikipedia, 2011). It is then directly controlled by an enzyme called GSK-3 which is glycogen synthase kinase 3, AMPK and protein kinase A (PKA) (Wikipedia, 2011). These proteins help phosphorylation turn Picture reaction glycogen causes 1 which in glycogen the by This Picture 1: Reaction catalysed by Glycogen Synthase. (Moran L.A. 2007) synthase to become inactive. represents catalysed synthase.

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