What is xenobiotic metabolism?

xenobiotic metabolism refers to various chemical reactions, called metabolic pathways that the living organism uses to change chemicals, which usually do not occur in its natural biochemistry. These chemicals, called xenobiotics, may include things such as poisons, drugs and pollutants on the environment. Xenobiotic metabolism is important to life because it allows the body to neutralize and eliminate foreign toxins that would otherwise disturb chemical processes that maintain it alive. Xenobiotic metabolism of people and many other forms of life is important in fields such as medicine, agriculture and environmental science. The polar molecules that have electric dipoles because their electrons are not evenly shared between the molecules atoms, they are generally gathering through the cell membrane. However, non -polar molecules can pass through the permeable membrane and into the cell. Xenobiotic metabolism protects the body from these substances enzymes that will react with greaterNou non -polar compounds. This specialization prevents them from attacking useful substances that are part of the normal biochemistry of the organism, which are polar compounds capable of distracting by cell membranes by means of transport proteins.

In the first phase of xenobiotic metabolism, a foreign substance is modified by chemical reactions that add polar or reactive groups to its molecules. This is most often done with enzymes that catalyze monooxygenase reactions with oxygen or O2 molecules and hydrogen, add one oxygen atom from O2 to xenobiotic molecules and create water molecule as a by -product. The most important group of proteins of this phase is involved in the P450 Cytochrome family, which includes more than 11,500 different proteins and is present in all forms of life on Earth.

modified xenobiotics is then detoxified by reactions with other molecules and combines with them to form moleculesxenobiotic conjugates. Chemicals commonly used at this stage include glycine (C2H5NO2), glutathion (C10H17N3O6S) and glucuronic acid (C6H10O7). These molecules are anions, which means they contain more electrons than protons and therefore have a negative electric charge. Depending on the related substance, the resulting conjugates may undergo further chemical reactions during detoxification.

Finally, the conjugate is excreted from the cell. His negatively charged anion groups allow him to bind to the molecules of a transporter protein that carry a conjugate over the cell membrane and outside the cell. From there, xenobiotics can be further metabolized by extracellular biochemicals or excluded from the body completely in sweat, urine or feces.

6 This allows many forms of life to live in environments or safely eat food that would be fatal for other species. This in turn can stimulate the development of species that produce toxins for hunting or defensive purposes and creates a selective pressure that prefers best organismsmore effective in overcoming the metabolism of their predators or prey.

xenobiotic metabolism is an important factor in agriculture. The reactions of various organisms to xenobiotics affect how they will be influenced by agricultural chemicals such as pesticides. As a result, evolutionary adaptation to xenobiotics is the main problem, as pests such as crop insects may develop God -resistance to pesticides as less resistant members of the species are won from the gene fund.

xenobiotic metabolism is also important in medicine because most drugs are xenobiotics. Some medicines do not have a medical effect in the form that is actually administered to the patient and becomes active when chemically changed by the patient's metabolism, a process called bioactivation. This is most often done by oxidizing the drug molecules and usually includes the P450 cytochrome family. However, it may also include other proteins such as epoxy hydrolase, methyltransferase and n-acetyltransferase that cause chemical fromCurrency such as hydrolysis, methylation and acetylation. One of the common causes of dangerous drug interactions is when one drug affects the patient's metabolism that disrupts the body's ability to metabolize another medicine, allowing it to accumulate unprocessed until it reaches dangerous levels and is the patient.