What metabolic substrate(s) can be produced from the carbon atoms of each of the following amino acids?
d. phenylalanine

Question

What metabolic substrate(s) can be produced from the carbon atoms of each of the following amino acids?

d. phenylalanine

Accepted Answer

All right. Hello everyone. So this question says in the citric acid cycle, what metabolic substrates can be produced from the carbon atoms of aspartate. Option A says acito coe and succinate. Option B says oxalic acetate and fumarate. Option C says pyruvate and alpha ketoglutarate. And option D says mate and succinylate or mate. So on the bottom of the screen, I also have this memory device that we're going to talk about in more detail. But for now, let's just recall some general context around the role of amino acids in metabolism because wall amino acids are primarily the monomers of proteins, which is also a very important function when it comes to these metabolic pathways like the citric acid cycle. It's the breakdown of these amino acids that we're interested in. So it's the catabolism of amino acids that helps us out with these metabolic pathways. Now, to be specific, oftentimes the catabolism of these amino acids produces a number of intermediates, two different metabolic pathways including the citric acid cycle. And so with this in mind, I want to draw your attention now to the memory device that I had on the screen earlier here. Now the memory device is simply the phrase Furious tires flying on asphalt. And the point of this is to showcase which amino acids can be broken down to produce fumarate, which is an important intermediate of the citric acid cycle. So, Furious is for fumarate tires is for tyrosine. The f in flying is for phenylalanine because that's the one letter code of phenylalanine. And the A sp in asphalt represents aspartic acid or a spartan. So here with the phrase, we can see that the amino acids tyrosine phenylalanine and aspartate can be broken down to produce fumarate or they can be converted into fumarate. So fumarate is definitely an answer. But what is the other product that can be formed from Sparta? Well, recall that amino acids can undergo what are known as transamination reactions. So basically the amino group of the amino acid is transferred to a different substrate to produce a new alpha keto acid and a new amino acid. So when aspartate undergoes a trans emanation reaction, the end result of that is actually oxalic acetate, which once again is an intermediate of the citric acid cycle. So the answers here are going to be both fumarate and oxo acetate, which means that our answer is going to be option B in the multiple choice and there you have it. So with that being said, thank you so very much for watching and I hope you found this helpful

What metabolic substrate(s) can be produced from the carbon atoms of each of the following amino acids?
d. phenylalanine

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Amino Acid Metabolism

Phenylalanine Catabolism

Metabolic Substrates

What metabolic substrate(s) can be produced from the carbon atoms of each of the following amino acids?d. phenylalanine

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Amino Acid Metabolism

Phenylalanine Catabolism

Metabolic Substrates

What metabolic substrate(s) can be produced from the carbon atoms of each of the following amino acids?
d. phenylalanine