Proteins into space — another way to waste taxpayers’ money?
Part two — attack of the enzyme
In previous post we have been talking about the protein, and in this we will talk a little bit more. Perhaps at the end we will be able to understand whether sending protein into space makes ANY sense at all.
Now proteins are an important part of our body, it is hard to compare it with mechanical world of our technology, but that is what we have to do now.
It is strange…. protein is at the same time a wire, holding things like our muscles/skin/bones together similar to cables we used on Golden gate bridge. And yet another protein, built from the same building blocks is a scissor, able to cut the first one in half. And it is a little more efficient in doing that than for example a guy standing on Golden gate bridge with a pair of pliers trying to get arrested… I mean to cut the cable. The funny part is that our protein — wire and protein — scissors are much more similar to each other yet much better at doing their job than our metal cable and pliers counterparts. Really funny. Yet another protein is like a pump, pumping certain things out of the cells, things as small as hydrogen cation which is basically a proton. They consume certain fuel (ATP) in the process so they are really like a miniature engine running on petrol.
Had I tried to describe all of the proteins I would have exhausted my imagination, but before that you would have probably googled for something else because there is so many of them performing so different functions that… lets look at the enzymes, shall we?
So called scissors in our case are enzymes. There are many different enzymes, and some of them are cutting other proteins. Protein cutting protein, so why doesn’t it cut itself? Heh, perhaps some other time…
Enzymes are therefore more similar to real machines, actually doing some work, not like protein-wires. Actually, they are really sophisticated and we can thank them that we are alive. They catalyse (another strange word) many chemical reactions absolutely necessary for our life, without them we wouldn’t be able to let’s say digest things. Or breathe… ok, we wouldn’t be able to do many things, but you get the big picture that they are quite important.
Well, they may misbehave, or we may, and then it is a good idea to see a doctor. As other machines enzymes are also controlled in this way or another, you press buttons in a factory, here you send a different signal, but principle is the same. Enzymes can be influenced to work faster or to work slower. Or not at all. You may also permanently damage them thus preventing a certain reaction in your body to happen.
What am I talking about? Well aspirin is one of those guys, that permanently damage so called COX or cyclooxygenase enzyme. A quick google search will give an explanation of how this works. To just quickly sum it up, they block synthesis of prostaglandins which are messengers (messenger molecules) and are responsible for temperature you get or pain you feel during an injury. They are useful those prostaglandins in fighting the infections, but sometimes we would prefer not feeling the pain or not boiling from inside with a thermometer in mouth. So we use acetlysalicid acid or aspirin, which blocks the COX enzyme. Unfortunately, there are side effects, like reduced ability of blood to coagulate and close wounds (that’s why you shouldn’t take aspirin or something similar before an operation and doctors always ask you that before doing anything), but perhaps more about this some other time. For now it is enough to say that enzymes are constantly being produced, so taking only 1 tablet doesn’t mean you will have your COX enzymes clogged for the rest of your life. New enzymes will replace the clogged ones.
Now why am I even talking about that?
You see enzymes are important for our health. And even more interesting they are easy to affect with our medicines… we could say pharmacy “targets” enzymes because they are easy to be aimed at and easy to hit. A great deal of medicine targets enzymes and a lot of medical care is going around those enzymes. If you want to know why are they “an easy hit” I will write more about that some other time.
Or maybe I will mention it just now. Enzymes — the wire cutting guys are really very specific. That means they cut mostly just one type of wire, or let’s say one thing, one compound or similar. So we usually find a molecule that enzyme cuts (cutting doesn’t mean that the “thing” necessarily gets destroyed) and try to design something that is similar to this first molecule, yet only harder to cut. Or it explodes when cut. Or anything. You wouldn’t believe but in Pharmacy (or medicinal chemistry) we call such a certain type of drugs (medicine) “suicide… something like suicide inhibitors, which irreversibly block a certain type of enzyme. One of those is also a protein pump inhibitor which helps people with too high stomach acidity. It is called omeprazole and many patients around the world take it, the drug was actually a block buster meaning that it was really a big hit when it come out (interesting mechanism tough).
So you have got all kind of protein khm enzyme inhibitors in every drug store… helping improve the life of an unimaginable number of patients on a daily basis. Blood pressure lowering pills (antihypertensive) affect this enzyme or another, either blocking certain messaging line (which would have increased the blood pressure) or doing something else to help patients live longer. It is really hard to imagine how much of those inhibitors are taken on a daily basis by number of people around you, and it is even harder to imagine havoc a cut in supply for one day would have wrecked. Well, one day… maybe a week, but we don’t want to try that. The fact is that as we have developed our medical care the reliance on drugs has increased to hardly imaginable proportions. That is why people live longer but…
I know, you are waiting for proteins into space…
Yeah, we will come to that. You know how series or comics book work, always putting those 3 most hated and feared words “to be continued” at the end… just finished reading Injustice wars from DC so I know what I am talking about.
But as you have probably guessed by know we are dealing with this in next part — Return of the Protein! (analogy with Star Wars is purely coincidental).
Until then, stay tuned for why sending a beef steak in lower earth orbit is a good idea. I mean proteins.
“To be continued…”
Part one is accessible HERE — The Protein Menace
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