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1). Your entrepreneur cousin wants to start a biotech business and promised you

ID: 132035 • Letter: 1

Question

1). Your entrepreneur cousin wants to start a biotech business and promised you half of the profits if you

could design a way to get bacteria to synthesize and store large amounts of fatty acids. Your cousin has

found a magical growth medium that is always at the perfect temperature, pH, concentration of trace

metals and inorganic phosphate for cell survival. The only problem is that it doesn’t provide any sources

of “food.” Since you are now the family expert on all things biochemistry, it is your task to design a

nutrition program that will supply ALL METABOLIC NEEDS for the cells and produce large amounts of

fatty acids. But this is an early startup, so your cousin only has funding to buy three molecules. Which three

should you use out of the twenty amino acids, five nucleotides, carbohydrates, and lipids commonly found in an Intro to Biochemistry course?

Explain your reasoning.

Explanation / Answer

Fatty acid synthesis requires acetyl coA, NADPH and glycerol. The acetyl coA is synthesized from glycolytic reactions from glucose. NADPH can be firmed from adenine nucleotide. So, synthesis of large amounts if fatty acids require the following three substances,