Lysozyme is an enzyme that breaks down bacterial cell walls and is found in your

Question

Lysozyme is an enzyme that breaks down bacterial cell walls and is found in your tears, mucus, and saliva. A mutation occurs in lysozyme that results in lysine (a positively charged amino acid) to change to arginine (also a positively charged amino acid). Do you think the mutant lysozyme will function similarly to the normal lysozyme?

A – No, because all changes in protein primary sequence result in functional differences

B – No, because changing lysine to arginine will cause the protein to denature

C – Yes, because lysine and arginine are similar so the tertiary structure and therefore function should be similar

D – Yes, because protein function stays the same no matter what mutations occur

My guess is C but I need to help to explain it in further detail. Thank you very much

Explanation / Answer

When the mutation occurs in lysozyme that results in lysine (a positively charged amino acid) to change to arginine, function should be similar because lysine and arginine are similar in the tertiary structure and positively charged, no strutural changes can be observed and hence no change in function of lysozyme can be resulted. Thus, option C is correct.

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