Replies to post #294954 on Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[falconer66a]

Oops! My error.

That’s the closest I’ll ever get to understanding what goes on in the meteorkondrea.

Well, what I described, the folding of the proteins, to make functioning enzymes, is true. But I located that process in the mitochondria. Wrong! (My bio professors would cringe if they saw what I wrote.)

What happens in the mitochondria (plural; one of them is a mitochondrion) is know very well known. Still, extremely complicated. In short, using energy originally from food, mostly glucose, converted to pyruvate, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecules are created. A phosphate ion is packed on to a low-energy ADP (adenosine diphosphate) molecule, making an ATP. ATPs then go off into other parts of the cell, where the third phosphate is popped off, releasing energy that drives most of the biochemistry in the cell. Took years to figure out ATP synthesis in the mitochondria (plural). We bio majors have to know most of the details (most of which I've forgotten). Check the reaction sequences in the diagram for the process (the Citric Acid Cycle) here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cycle

But that's not where or how proteins are folded. That happens (here, I get it right) in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER);(plural: endoplasmic reticula). Those organelles are usually attached or touch mitochondria, to allow efficient transfer of ATPs into the ERs. It's inside the ER where proteins are properly folded — IF the right chemical conditions are maintained there; something that happens with a properly functioning sigma-1 receptor protein. As mentioned, the Anavex drug blarcamesine facilitates that.

So, properly, proteins are folded in the ER, NOT the mitochondrion. I wasn't paying attention in my previous post. I had everything right, except for the location. I lost a grade on that test (got a C-).