Kinase Linked Receptors – The Cellular Restaurant
McDonalds. A multi-million dollar franchise known for its tasty food, cheap prices and its organised systemic procedure that it uses to deliver food. Interestingly your cell works the same way, particularly with Kinase linked Receptors (KLR) . KLRs are enzyme linked receptors that detect and amplify extracellular hormones that allow them to induce a cellular response. Just as you were to go into McDonalds and order your food to the cashier, ligands (signalling molecule) make their way towards the transmembrane receptor of the cell triggering an “order” for the cell to produce. Just how the cashier operates the computer to select your order such as menu > burgers > Big Mac, kinase linked receptors use a similar method to deliver its own order by binding, activating then cross phosphorylating. This intermediate step to get the message to the nucleus (Kitchen of McDonalds) is what classifies it as a secondary messenger.
What Are Kinase Linked Receptors and What do they do?
KLRs are transmembrane enzymes that when activated initiate a series of biochemical actions within a cell altering its physiological state. Classified as 1 of 4 of the receptor superfamilies, KLR exists as 3 main types that acquire their own specific intracellular cascade induced from their own specific ligand. These 3 types include the metabolism of glucose and glycogen which is triggered by the insulin ligand, inflammation induced via cytokines as the ligand and lastly a large variety of specific growth factors that are generally responsible for cellular growth and differentiation. Think of each KLR type as a different order from the McDonalds menu e.g. Big mac, Quarter pounder and cheeseburger. These signal mechanisms take minutes to hours to complete unlike their G-protein and ionotropic cousins (from the receptor superfamily) in which take seconds and milliseconds respectively. These receptors are like KFC and Hungry Jacks compared to the McDonalds.
How do They Work?
- Amplification of cellular extracellular signal (Signal transduction)
- Active Dimers (2 proteins working together)
- Transduce signal within minutes to hours unlike G-protein (seconds) and ionotropic receptors (milliseconds)
The problem
Hey Andrew,
Bearing in mind that it is a “wordy” topic, your attempts to simplify KLR’s so far have been quite interesting and effective. It presents a different point of view towards the insight of the topic many people would not have thought off. Your explanation breaks it down fairly well and makes it easier for the non sciency reader to follow and understand what is going on. Just be careful not to over “science” the whole thing with jargon. Also, pictures would be a good addition.
Overall, very good effort. One of the better blogs i’ve read on this topic.
I absolutely love the analogies you use within your blog. It makes it straight forward and easy to understand but at the same time you’re not skipping out on valuable information. It’s a great start and I think with the addition of a layout and diagrams to support your information everything will come together just fine.
I like the analogy it really works but still a fair way to go and some good diagrams to support your text. Should be an interesting blog.
Hey Andrew,
Great info and a nice analogy that describes the topic very well. You might want to include some diagrams or figures and include some more formatting to make the blog more presentable.
The blog is looking good so far!
Hi Andrew, I really enjoyed the way you bounced off your McDonald’s analogy to engage the reader in a more conversational tone. Once you add pictures and diagrams to illustrate the content, I think your blog will be extremely effective.
I really like the restaurant analogy and I think a diagram would really help visualize the process.
Love the Maccas analogy as an opener, really helps visualise the process! I agree with what others have said that you do start to use scientific jargon. I think keeping it conversational like your opener will really help the flow of it. Your use of headings to break up the concepts is also a really good idea to help people follow the blog, but maybe a few images would help this as well. Good start so far!
A great analogy! But yeah, like the others have said, be careful with the scientific jargon 🙂
Hi Andrew,
I agree with Eva. The McDonald’s analogy is helpful (and witty), especially for lay readers. Also, you managed to use both formal and conversational language; you might want to simplify some science jargon to have a good balance of both. Since this the first draft, I’m assuming you’ll be incorporating some visual aids to support the information. I’m sure images will add more flair to you blog. Otherwise, it’s a solid start.
I like the maccas analogy a lot. I think it’d be even more powerful if you included some simple diagrams that went with the analogy, just so we could visualise the process better. The first few sentences of your second paragraph are really long and formal-science ish, they might work better if they were shortened and simplified a little bit. Swapping the paragraph around (so you start by explaining the analogy and then slowly work in all the other terms) would also work. Overall definitely add more jazzy visual stuff but your analogy is great and I think it’ll work really well!