Monday, October 22, 2007

Monday's Molecule #48

 
Today's molecule is several molecules and a reaction. You have to identify all the molecules in the reaction and name the common enzyme that catalyzes the reaction.

There's connection between this reaction and Wednesday's Nobel Laureate(s).

The reward goes to the person who correctly identifies the molecules, the enzyme, and the Nobel Laureate(s). Previous free lunch winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize. There are only two ineligible candidates for this Wednesday's reward. The prize is a free lunch at the Faculty Club.

Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk(at)bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecules, the enzyme, and the Nobel Laureate(s). Correct responses will be posted tomorrow along with the time that the message was received on my server. This way I may select multiple winners if several people get it right. This one is easy. Get your response in quickly.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are not open.

UPDATE: We have a winner!


3 comments:

  1. Today's winner is Andrew Go who answered in less than 15 minutes from the time I posted the article.

    Here's Andrew's reply.

    The reaction shows the hydrolysis of urea into carbon dioxide and ammonia. H2NC(O)NH2 = urea; H2O = water; CO2 = carbon dioxide; NH3 = ammonia. The enzyme that catalyzes the reaction is urease. I'll guess the Nobel Laureate is James Sumner, Chemistry 1946.

    Incidentally, Chris Hlynialuk points out that there was a major clue in one of the words in yesterday's posting. The word "urea" is contained within "Laureate."

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  2. So an elementary question for any chemistry folks, I see too few of the various atoms to make the stated product, whence then, the second carbon atom? and so on.

    Thanks,
    Lee <- not likely to win any prize in chemistry

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  3. I believe the 2 in front of urea denotes 2 molecules so you would have 2 carbon, etc. The math should work out then.

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