Consider a single murine hepatocyte at homeostasis with its surrounding environment, which includes other neighboring hepatocytes and extra-hepatic tissues. Due to changes in the organism’s activity, this hepatocyte receives signals that trigger the need to synthesize exactly 30 copies of a protein required for altered amino acid metabolism. 1. How many equivalents of ATP are required to synthesize these 30 protein molecules? 2. Under aerobic conditions, how many molecules of glucose must be consumed in order to generate the ATP necessary to complete synthesis of these 30 protein molecules? 3. Under anaerobic conditions, how many molecules of glucose will be needed? 4. In the absence of glucose and under aerobic conditions, how many molecules of a triacylglyceride containing three palmitic acid groups would be needed to supply sufficient ATP? 5. In the absence of glucose and under anaerobic conditions, how many molecules of a triacylglyceride containing three palmitic acid groups would be needed? Use the following assumptions/constraints when determining your answers: All of the necessary catalytic complexes have already been synthesized within the cell Nucleotides used for transcription must be accounted for A single transcript is sufficient for translation of all 30 polypeptides The primary transcript contains 500 nucleotides that are not translated. This includes the stop codon and a single intron that must be removed by the spliceosome prior to translation The poly-A tail contains an additional 250 nucleotides Amino acids and tRNA’s are readily available, energy required for their synthesis/replacement does not need to be accounted for Each of the 30 protein molecules to be synthesized are identical, and contains 639 amino acids Once translated, no further processing of the 30 molecules occurs, they fold spontaneously and do not require other post-translational modifications Do not account for waste products