Study Guide: Cell Signaling
To-Do Date: Sep 25 at 11:59amThe medical and science communities know a lot about diabetes, but there is so much more to learn. Given what we have learned, what would you fill in for the black box in the cartoon? 
We will continue our work to understand diabetes. Last week we focused on
how glucose and other monomers were transported by the blood and absorbed by all the cells of the body. This required that you learn about basic cell membrane structure and function
This week we are going examine how our bodies regulate both the concentration of sugar in our blood and the absorption of sugar into the cells. As you can see from the flowchart below, this involves thinking about organs/organ systems and cells and cell membranes.
Text description of the highlighted portion of the Diabetes Flowchart (Word doc) Download Text description of the highlighted portion of the Diabetes Flowchart (Word doc)
Learning Objectives :
By the end of the week you will be able to
- Demonstrate how cell signaling controls cell functions
- How do small amounts of a signal produce large responses
- How chemical signals from outside the cell lead to large responses inside the cell
- The role of receptor proteins, transduction (amplification) pathways and cellular or nuclear responses
- Apply this information to the insulin signaling pathway.
- Apply information about proteins to enzymes . What is their function? How does the amino acid sequence determine the folding, shape and shape of the active site? What is the function of the active site? How does the amino acid sequence of the enzyme determine the specificity of the enzyme? How do enzymes affect chemical reactions? Are enzymes reusable? Are enzyme specific? How does temperature affect the activity and function of an enzyme? Do all enzymes have the same temperature optimum?