Sandbox Reserved 1452

This Sandbox is Reserved from Jan 22 through May 22, 2018 for use in the course Biochemistry II taught by Jason Telford at the Maryville University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA. This reservation includes Sandbox Reserved 1446 through Sandbox Reserved 1455.

To get started: Click the edit this page tab at the top. Save the page after each step, then edit it again. Click the 3D button (when editing, above the wikitext box) to insert Jmol. show the Scene authoring tools, create a molecular scene, and save it. Copy the green link into the page. Add a description of your scene. Use the buttons above the wikitext box for bold, italics, links, headlines, etc. More help: Help:Editing

Uricase

spinqualitylabelsall models Caption for this structure Show:Asymmetric Unit Biological Assembly Drag the structure with the mouse to rotate   Export Animated Image   Print3D This is a default text for your page '. Click above on edit this page' to modify. Be careful with the < and > signs. You may include any references to papers as in: the use of JSmol in Proteopedia or to the article describing Jmol to the rescue. Function It is an enzyme that converts uric acid to allantoin. Allantoin is much more soluble than uric acid, and passes harmlessly from the body. Unfortunately, during evolution, humans have lost the ability to produce uricase (also called urate oxidase). Relevance Uricase is an enzyme that catalyzes the conversion or uric acid to allantoin. Uric acid is an acidic waste product that your body passes through urine. It is a normal byproduct of the breakdown of foods that contain purines. Normally, the kidneys filter out uric acid from your blood; if too much builds up, it can lower the pH of your blood and urine and lead to a painful joint condition called gout and other complications. The reason I chose uricase is because it monitors the uric acid levels in our body. Interestingly, humans have naturally selected to terminate uricase. Because of the absence of uricase in humans, we may go through many complications caused by uric acid build up. Scientists are studying why natural selection would allow the accumulation of uric acid even though there are psychological complications of crystalized monosodium urate acutely causing liver and kidney damage or chronically causing gout. Structural highlights This is uricase without a ligand. You can view uricase with a ligand here.