Question

(1). Rapidly growing cancers generally exhibit increased glycolysis for ATP generation (the Warburg effect). Do you think targeting glycolysis could be a good strategy for cancer therapy? If your answer is YES, which enzyme could be a good anti-cancer drug target? If your answer is NO, please explain why

(2). Please discuss the process of making beer, or wine, or bread. What ingredients in these items participate in the fermentation pathways? How are the end products of fermentation utilized?

(3). You eat a hamburger that has polysaccharides, proteins and lipids. Using your knowledge of the integration of biochemical pathways, explain how the amino acids in the proteins and glucose in the polysaccharides can end up as fats.

Answer 1

1. Glycolytic flux plays a significant role in energy generation and building block synthesis, i.e. cell viability, lactic acid production and cell proliferation. Metabolism of glucose is different in cancerous cells compared to the healthy cells noticed by Warburg. Specifically, it was noticed by him that there was increased uptake of glucose in cancerous cells and a more lactate production. Consequently, he concluded that for the production of energy, cancer cells depend mainly on glycolysis instead of the regular mechanism of oxidative phosphorylation. Thus, inhibition of glycolytic metabolites as well as ATP production could have a catastrophic effect on cancer cells. The glycolytic pathway (in the cytosol) presents a unique arrangement of probable therapeutic targets for anticancer drug development. Enzymes involved in glycolytic pathways such as hexokinase, pyruvate kinase could be an important target for good anti - cancer drug.

2) beer, or wine, or bread are the product of fermentation mostly by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The process by which there is the production of alcoholic beverages is called fermentation and may be presented as:

Yeast + Glucose Alcohol (Ethanol) + CO2

For making bread, the desired product is then the carbon dioxide instead of alcohol. The alcohol production occurs best in the absence of oxygen.

In both case for beer and wine, the production of beverage through fermentation alone. Wine is a fermented fruit juice, and most frequently, fermented grape juice. To produce wine, harvest and crush of grapes, producing juice. Then fermentation of juice is allowed, depending on the natural yeast organisms. In modern process of making wine, sulfur dioxide is added at this particular stage to remove unwanted bacteria.

For the production of beer, instead of grapes different grains are used as the sugar source. Barley is most frequently used grains, though wheat, rye or many grains have also been used at different regions. The grain used must be 1st dried for beer. This process of drying converts the starches of grain into sugars. This dried grains are called as malt, and composed as first ingredient in beer. Hope is the 2nd ingredient . A flowers clusters from the plant Humulus lupulus, hops changes the aroma and flavor of beer. Also, hops provides beer its clear, sparkling aspect and drain bacteria from the fermenting solution, decreasing the chance of spoilage. The third ingredient is water, that allow to mix the yeast, malt and hops for proper fermentation to take place.