Collagen metabolic hydrolysis

Van Lanckcr s treatment of hydrolases and cell death in Volume I brings into view a widely discussed role of hydrolases and the lysosomes, Fullmer s chapter on the metabolic hydrolysis of collagen in Volume II... 

Rate of turnover In healthy adults, the total amount of protein in the body remains constant, because the rate of protein synthesis is just sufficient to replace the protein that is degraded. This process, called protein turnover, leads to the hydrolysis and resynthesis of 300 to 400 g of body protein each day. The rate of protein turnover varies widely for individual proteins. Short-lived proteins (for example, many regulatory proteins and misfolded proteins) are rapidly degraded, having half-lives measured in rrh-utes or hours. Long-lived proteins, with half-lives of days to weeks, constitute the majority of proteins in the cell. Structural proteins, such as collagen, are metabolically stable, and hare half-lives measured in months or years. 

Figure 9.8 outlines how matrix vesicles increase and decrease the concentration of pyrophosphate. NTP-PPi hydrolase synthesizes pyrophosphate from stromal fluid nucleotides, mostly ATP (ATP —> AMP + PPi). Many cells secrete ATP into the extracellular fluid and it passes into the blood plasma where it affects a variety of cells independently of its function in intracellular energy metabolism. In mice, a nonfunctional ANK protein or a deletion of NTP-PPi hydrolase decreases the extracellular pyrophosphate concentration and the phenotype exhibits extensive mineralization. Thus, the hydrolysis of pyrophosphate appears to be a major function of alkaline phosphatase (TNAP) after the calcium phosphate precipitate has raptured the matrix vesicles. Rapid mineralization of collagen and the rest of the osteoid matrix ensue without a need to transport any more Ca2+ or Pi to the region. 

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