Biological complexity: cleaning up worn out muscle cells (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, May 28, 2020, 20:12 (1426 days ago) @ David Turell

The process involves attaching ubiquitin to the cells to destroy them:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200528082552.htm

"Researchers at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports have demonstrated that physical activity prompts a clean-up of muscles as the protein Ubiquitin tags onto worn-out proteins, causing them to be degraded. This prevents the accumulation of damaged proteins and helps keep muscles healthy.

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"Maintaining muscular function is essential. Part of our ability to do so depends upon proteins -- the building blocks of muscles -- being degraded when worn-out and eliminated in a kind of clean up process that allows them to be replaced by freshly synthesized proteins.

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"'One of these methods is when Ubiquitin, "the death-marker," tags a protein in question. Ubiquitin itself is a small protein. It attaches itself to the amino acid Lysine on worn-out proteins, after which the protein is transported to a Proteasome, which is a structure that gobbles up proteins and spits them out as amino acids. These amino acids can then be reused in the synthesis of new proteins. As such, Ubiquitin contributes to a very sustainable circulation of the body's proteins.'"

Comment: A neatly designed process which reuses amino acids for new muscle proteins. This could not develop by chance.