Case Study 1
Part I Questions
1) What are the essential parts of a signaling pathway? (2 points)
2) How could activating a transcription factor cause long-term cellular changes? (2 points)
3) What roles does phosphorylation play in protein function? (2 points)
4) Why do think a signaling pathway needs to be regulated? (2 points)
5) Hypothesize some situations where it would be necessary for signal transduction to happen very rapidly (2 points)
Part II Questions
1) How could the study of insulin signaling help people with diabetes? (2 points)
2) Why does it make sense that Tania’s uncle may be more fatigued than a non-diabetic? (2 points)
3) How does a lack of insulin prevent the cell from using glucose? (3 points)
4) Why is it important that specific tissues respond to insulin in different ways? (3 points)
5) Hypothesize a mechanism to explain how tissues respond to insulin in different ways, even tissues that have the same amount of the receptor. (5 points)
Part III Questions
1) How do the effects of insulin resistance compound to decrease cellular responses to insulin? (5 points)
2) Hypothesize a mechanism by which the GLUT4 transporter’s fusion to the cell membrane could be decreased. (5 points)
3) If you were in Tania’s place, which of the insulin resistance pathways would you like to work on and why? (5 points)