Essay Sample on The Agonist-Antagonist Balance: The Key to Human Physiology

Introduction

The key players in a human body, as well as pharmacology, are antagonists and agonists that act in the opposite direction. It is such that the production of an action by an agonist results in the antagonist opposing it. This way, agonists are said to work with the muscles, especially when they relax while the antagonists work against them, especially during their contraction.

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The spectrum of agonists in action is that they are involved in combination with other chemical substances to cause a reaction in the human body (Di Pizio et al., 2016). On the other side, the antagonists have the responsibility to interfere with such an action. The agonists are compounds that tend to impersonate the transmitter actions while the antagonists block such moves. The antagonists do not alter the activities of receptors as they help in binding, while the agonists alter the activities of the receptors.

Actions of G Couple Proteins and Ion Gated Channels

The g couple proteins are responsible for mediating the majority of physiological responses. They have great potential as therapeutic targets for many diseases because they send the responses to hormones, environmental stimulants, and also neurotransmitters. They are known to be fascinating molecules when one considers the perspective of membrane-protein structure (Rosenbaum et al., 2014). There is efficient energy transfer between the binding pocket and the site of g protein interaction. The ion-gated channels on the other side are complexes of transmembrane proteins that have the responsibility of conducting ion flow through a channel pore as a way of responding to the neurotransmitter binding. They allow the regulated flow of selected ions across the plasma. They open and close in response to a stimulus such as the changes in pressure or the transmitters.

Role of Epigenetics in Pharmacologic Action

Epigenetics have alterations that influence the health and disease state of organisms. Such modifications include methylation and acetylation that are associated with diseases such as cancers and neurodegenerative disorders (Rasool et al., 2015). This way, there is a need for epigenetic diagnostic testing to realize the promise of personalized medicine for a patient.

The causes of epigenetic alterations include the changes in the internal and external environment of a biological system. The fundamental epigenetic mechanisms tend to control the modifications in gene expression. The alterations mechanisms control the gene expression and biological functions that are connected to homeostasis and allostasis (Rasool et al., 2015). The phenotypic variations as a result of epigenetic modifications that then lead to various diseases of the skin and bones as well as associated disorders.

Conclusion

The information is crucial during drug prescription because one needs to consider personalized medicines, drug responses of clients as well as the polymorphism of drug-metabolizing enzymes. Every patient has different reactions to drugs in terms of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion. Pharmacological response and drug targets are essential to consider, as well as the genes that affect the metabolism of prescribed drugs. The psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner should be knowledgeable on the pharmacogenomics in disease treatment, drug receptors, and how they are encoded by genes and mutations. These will helps to know the drugs to prescribe and the doses that the blood will not resist as well as the cell surface.

References

Di Pizio, A., Levit, A., Slutzki, M., Behrens, M., Karaman, R., & Niv, M. Y. (2016). Comparing Class a GPCRs to bitter taste receptors: Structural motifs, ligand interactions, and agonist-to-antagonist ratios. Methods in cell biology (Vol. 132, pp. 401-427). Academic Press. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091679X15001983

Rasool, M., Malik, A., Naseer, M. I., Manan, A., Ansari, S. A., Begum, I., & Kamal, M. A. (2015). The role of epigenetics in personalized medicine: challenges and opportunities. BMC medical genomics, 8(S1), S5. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4315318/

Rosenbaum, D. M., Rasmussen, S. G., & Kobilka, B. K. (2014). The structure and function of G-protein-coupled receptors. Nature, 459(7245), 356-363. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3967846/