Question - Consider a single murine T lymphocyte circulating through the bloodstream and at homeostasis with its surrounding environment. Due to exposure of the organism to an external pathogen that infiltrates the blood, this lymphocyte receives signals that trigger the need to synthesize exactly 53 copies of a protein required for mediating an inflammatory response. Below are the five questions that you will be required to address explaining how you arrived at your answer:

1. How many equivalents of ATP are required to synthesize these 53 protein molecules?

2. Under aerobic conditions, how many molecules of glucose must be consumed to generate the ATP necessary to complete synthesis of these 53 protein molecules?

3. Under anaerobic conditions, how many molecules of glucose will be needed to generate the ATP necessary to complete synthesis of these 53 protein molecules?

4. In the absence of glucose and under aerobic conditions, how many molecules of a triacylglyceride containing three stearic 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 stearic acid groups would be needed?

Use the following assumptions/constraints when determining your answers:

1. All the necessary catalytic complexes have already been synthesized within the cell.

2. Nucleotides used for transcription must be accounted for.

3. A single transcript is sufficient for translation of all 53 polypeptides.

4. The primary transcript contains 204 nucleotides that are not translated. This includes the stop codon and a single intron that must be removed by the spliceosome prior to translation.

5. The poly-A tail contains an additional 123 nucleotides.

6. Amino acids and uncharged tRNA's are readily available; energy required for their synthesis/replacement does NOT need to be accounted for.

7. Each of the 53 protein molecules to be synthesized are identical, and contain 623 amino acids.

8. Once translated, no further processing of the 53 molecules occurs, they fold spontaneously and do not require other post-translational modifications.

9. The malate-aspartate shuttle is NOT functional in T-cells.

10. Do NOT account for waste products.