Eukaryotic cells, protein phosphorylation

Phosphorylation is the most common type of regulatory modification one-third to one-half of all proteins in a eukaryotic cell are phosphorylated. Some proteins have only one phosphorylated residue, others have several, and a few have dozens of sites for phosphorylation. This mode of covalent modification is central to a large number of regulatory pathways, and we therefore discuss it in considerable detail. 

Post-translational modification of proteins plays a critical role in cellular function. For, example protein phosphorylation events control the majority of the signal transduction pathways in eukaryotic cells. Therefore, an important goal of proteomics is the identification of post-translational modifications. Proteins can undergo a wide range of post-translational modifications such as phosphorylation, glycosylation, sulphonation, palmitoylation and ADP-ribosylation. These modifications can play an essential role in the function of the protein and mass spectrometry has been used to characterize such modifications. 

Mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatases are dual-function protein phosphatases. Just as the MAPK kinases (e.g. MEKs) are unique as dual-functioning kinases in that they phosphorylate MAPKs on threonine and tyrosine residues, there are unique dual-function ing protein phosphatases that reverse the phosphorylation and activation of MAPKs [43], Such MAPK phosphatases (MKPs) were first identified as a product of vaccinia virus (VH1) and later found in all eukaryotic cells. There are now numerous members of this VH1 family of dual-functioning protein phosphatases. 

Phosphorylation of serine, threonine, or tyrosine residues by protein kinases, and their dephosphorylation by protein phosphatases, are critical mechanisms by which information-relaying signals are transduced in eukaryotic cells. Although protein kinases are by no means an eukaryotic invention (see Leonard et al., 1998 for details), the large numbers of protein kinases in eukaryotes (118 in. S . cerevisiae and 435 in C. elegans (Chervitz et al., 1998)) reflect their importance in a multitude of diverse cellular processes. Eukaryotes have evolved signaling pathways that exploit the dual state of an amino acid, dependent on its state of phosphorylation, both as a signaling mechanism and as a means of colocalization of molecules within multimolecular complexes. 

In eukaryotic cells, electron transport and oxidative phosphorylation occur in mitochondria. Mitochondria have both an outer membrane and an inner membrane with extensive infoldings called cristae (fig. 14.2). The inner membrane separates the internal matrix space from the intermembrane space between the inner and outer membranes. The outer membrane has only a few known enzymatic activities and is permeable to molecules with molecular weights up to about 5,000. By contrast, the inner membrane is impermeable to most ions and polar molecules, and its proteins include the enzymes that catalyze oxygen consumption and formation of ATP. The role of mitochondria in 02 uptake, or respiration, was demonstrated in 1913 by Otto Warburg but was not fully confirmed until 1948, when Eugene Kennedy and Albert Lehninger showed that mitochondria carry out the reactions of the TCA cycle, the transport of electrons to 02, and the formation of ATP. 

In addition to their plasma membrane eukaryotic cells also contain internal membranes that define a variety of organelles (fig. 17.2). Each of these organelles is specialized for particular functions The nucleus synthesizes nucleic acids, mitochondria oxidize carbohydrates and lipids and make ATP, chloroplasts carry out photosynthesis, the endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi apparatus synthesize and secrete proteins, and lysosomes digest proteins. Additional membranes divide mitochondria and chloroplasts into even finer, more specialized subcompartments. Like the plasma membrane, organellar membranes act as barriers to the leakage of proteins, metabolites, and ions they contain transport systems for import and export of materials, and they are the sites of enzymatic activities as diverse as cholesterol biosynthesis and oxidative phosphorylation. 

Mitochondrion. An organelle, found in eukaryotic cells, in which oxidative phosphorylation takes place. It contains its own genome and unique ribosomes to carry out protein synthesis of only a fraction of the proteins located in this organelle. 

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