Question

A chemist has discovered a drug that blocks phosphoglucoisomerase, an enzyme that catalyzes the second reaction in glycolysis. He wants to use the drug to kill bacteria in people with infections. However, he cannot do this because:
a) bacteria are prokaryotes; they usually do not need to perform glycolysis
b) human cells must also perform glycolysis: the drug might also poison them
c) glycolysis produces so little ATP that the drug will have little effect
d) this step in the pathway of glycolysis can be skipped in bacteria, but not in humans
e) glycolysis can occur without the action of enzymes

Answer 1

Answer:

b) human cells must also perform glycolysis: the drug might also poison them.

Explanation:

Glycolysis is an absolute necessity for each living organism or each living cell be it a prokaryote or eukaryote beacuse glycolysis is one of the processes which are involved in energy production or ATP production which means that if glycolysis will not occur then ATP will not be produced and organism will die out due to the lack of energy. Also, the pathway of glycolysis is same in each organism which simply means that same kind of enzymes will be used during glycolysis by bacteria as well as the human being which has bacteria inside his body. So if we will administer a drug to block phosphoglucoisomerase enzyme to kill bacteria, the drug will block this enzyme in both the organisms i.e. in bacteria and also in host organism. As a result of which glycolysis will halt in both of them leading to the death of both the organisms. The use of this drug is therefore not recommended.