A patient you are working with is prescribed a medication that works on cell-surface markers. He is concerned that this medication may activate the wrong surface markers and make him very ill
a. What steps would you take to tell him how cell surface markers work?
b. Why is an understanding of cell surface markers important for this patient to know?
- Signaling systems consist of receptors that reside either in the cell membrane (surface receptors) or within the cells (intracellular receptors).
- Receptors are activated by a variety of extracellular signals or first messengers (including neurotransmitters, protein hormones and growth factors, steroids, and other chemical messengers). Signaling systems also include transducers and are the effectors that are involved in conversion of the signal into a physiological response.
- The pathway may include additional intracellular mechanisms, called second messengers. Many molecules involved in signal transduction are proteins.
- Three known classes of cell surface receptor proteins exist: G-protein-linked, ion-channel-linked, and enzyme-linked.
- G-protein receptors rely on the intermediary activity of a separate class of membrane-bound regulatory proteins to convert external signals (first messengers) into internal signals (second messengers).
- Enzyme-linked receptors' cytosolic domain either has intrinsic enzyme activity or associates directly with an enzyme.
- Ion-channel-linked signaling is mediated by neurotransmitters that transiently open or close ion channels formed by integral proteins in the cell membrane.
b.
- The patient is more likely to take his medication if he understands how it works to help him.
- He has a patient right and a medical obligation to be given this information.
- This knowledge may ease the patient's anxiety about needing to take the medication.
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