Metabolism
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Do we need to synthesise fatty acids?
Objectives
By the end of this exercise you should be able to:
Explain the importance of biotin in the carboxylation of acetyl CoA to malonyl CoA as the first step in fatty acid biosynthesis
Explain the importance of the acyl carrier protein and describe its prosthetic group
Describe the reactions involved in fatty acid biosynthesis
Explain why none of the intermediates in the pathway is found when studying the mammalian fatty acid synthase
Explain why, although there is an unsaturated intermediate in the reaction sequence, the only product of cytosolic fatty acid synthase is the saturated fatty acid derivative, palmitoyl CoA
Describe the processes of fatty acid chain elongation and desaturation that occur in the endoplasmic reticulum