Question

Biochemistry

What is the advantage of activating D using the strategy shown in the figure? Why is the strategy shown more effective than a simple activation of D that occurs in one step? Ligand binding to certain receptor tyrosine kinases results in the activation of a sphingomyelinase enzyme. Draw the reaction that shows the sphingomyelinase catalyzed hydrolysis of sphingomyelin to ceramide.

Answer 1

Here we can see that the D molecule is activated by activated C molecule and C molecule is activated by activated B molecule and the B molecule conversely activated by the activated A molecule. So, we can see that just to activate the D molecule we need to go through the previous 3 steps. This is because the activation of D molecule can be regulated by regulating any of these previous 3 pathways which make the activation of D molecule very stringently regulated.

This strategy is more effective because even if one of these previous pathway is not regulated properly then there will be other two still left for regulating the following molecule activation.