Functions of the liver

What is carbohydrate metabolism when BGC levels rise?

When BGC levels rise, insulin levels rise and stimulate hepatocytes to convert glucose to glycogen

What is carbohydrate metabolism when BGC levels fall?

Hepatocytes convert the glycogen back to glucose due to glucagon

What is transamination?

Happens by hepatocytes, the conversion of 1 amino acid into another. This is important as the diet does not always contain the required balance of amino acids

What is deamination?

Removal of an amine group from a molecule, hepatocytes deanimate the amino acids, removing amino group and converting it into ammonia then to urea

What does the remainder of the amino acid from deamination do?

Can be fed into respiration or converted into lipids for stroke

What happens to ammonia produced in deamination?

Converted into urea by the ornithine cycle, removing the amino group from amino acids and converting ammonia to less toxic urea

What is detoxification? (1)

Hepatocytes contain catalase, which splits hydrogen peroxide into O2 and H2O, another example is the way that the liver detoxifies the ethanol in alcohol

What is detoxification? (2)

Hepatocytes contain alcohol dehydrogenase that breaks ethanol into ethanol - which is converted to ethanoate to build up fatty acids/used in respiration