Metabolism 1
- Not for students in Honours Biochemistry or Honours Medicinal Chemistry programs.
This course covers the basics of intermediary metabolism, with a focus on pathways that occur in the human body and are related to energy metabolism. In human metabolism, energy is generated from three classes of substrates: carbohydrates, fat, and proteins. Pathways specific to these substrates bring about their initial breakdown, yielding just very few common intermediates, such as pyruvate and acetyl-CoA. These intermediates are then oxidized by a common mechanism that comprises the citric acid cycle and the respiratory chain. Accordingly, this course will cover the following topics:
- Carbohydrate metabolism: glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, glycogen breakdown and synthesis.
- Lipid metabolism: fatty acid biosynthesis and degradation, and ketone bodies.
- Amino acid metabolism: selected degradation pathways that are of medical significance, and the urea cycle.
- Common oxidative pathways: citric acid cycle and the respiratory chain.
- How enzymes work – looking at selected examples.
- Why metabolism is medically important, and how knowledge of metabolism can help us to understand and cure disease.
Please remember that the Undergraduate Calendar is always the official source for all course descriptions.