Elite Engineer Posted September 13, 2016 Share Posted September 13, 2016 I know some compounds are toxic when they are metabolized (i.e. amygdalin in apple seeds is converted to cynanide via digestion). But what would cause a protein to be toxic? They shouldn't be toxic because of what they're metabolized into, b/c they're mainly linked amino acids. Is their toxicity derived from their specific conformation/ properties..like ricin? I guess what i'm trying to ask is, are proteins nontoxic when they're denatured (i.e. no conformation) or are they still toxic even when denatured b/c of their metabolic product. ~EE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BabcockHall Posted September 13, 2016 Share Posted September 13, 2016 I don't think I can give a comprehensive answer, but some proteins are toxic because they have enzymatic or other biological activities; cholera toxin comes to mind in that regard. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxy john Posted September 20, 2016 Share Posted September 20, 2016 Proteins are toxic because of their structure and conformation. Exceptions could be the metallo proteins where a toxic metal is bound to the protein, but that is the metal being toxic, not the protein. A denatured protein could be toxic if the shape is correct/incorrect, they still have a conformation, albeit a different one to normal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itoero Posted September 23, 2016 Share Posted September 23, 2016 (edited) The polyglutamine diseases are a group of neurodegenerative disorders caused by expanded cytosine-adenine-guanine repeats encoding a long polyglutamine tract in the respective proteins. So in this case, extra amino-acids (glutamine) alters the conformation/composition of a protein and causes harmful/toxic effects. Edited September 23, 2016 by Itoero 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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