Drugs have 2 properties which includes its affinity and intrinsic efficacy. “Affinity is the
property of a drug that describes its ability to bind to a receptor. “Intrinsic efficacy, is the drug
property that describes the effect a drug has on receptor activity that can lead to a change in
cellular activity” (Berry&Clarke, 2018). Affinity and intrinsic efficacy always remains the same
and is unique for each drug-receptor pair because it is determined by the structure of the
receptor and the drug.
Agonists are drugs they attach to the target receptor and by doing so they alter the receptor
and a response is produced. Antagonists are the opposite in that no response is produced after
attaching to the receptor. A full agonist will create the highest response it is capable of, while
a partial agonist only produces a partial or a fraction of the response. So a partial agonist
can be both agonist and antagonist because other molecules are unable to bind producing
minimal activity (Berry &Clarke, 2018).
Compare and contrast the actions of g couple proteins and ion gated
channels.
G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) works by slower messenger systems and are a
very large family of receptors (Camprodon & Roffman, 2016). They use the G protein to send
signals within a cell. Malfunctions in this receptor will result in disorders as the are
responsible for a lot of functions in our body. When these proteins and their units interact with
proteins in the cell a different response is achieved. These units are formed when G proteins
bind with guanosine triphosphate. GTP is released and GPD is obtained (Breitwieser,1991).
Ion gated channels on the other hand are responsible for movement of ions in and out
of the cell and control neuronal firing (Camprodon & Roffman, 2016). They open a channel
after attaching a ligand, thus allowing particular ions to pass through it. This channel is
formed by this receptor through its membrane spanning region (Breitwieser, 1991). These
channels are a very important part of the nervous system. They signal and help chemical
neurotransmitter messages to be converted to an electrical current (Breitwieser, 1991).
Explain how the role of epigenetics may contribute to pharmacologic action.
Epigenetics “literally means in addition to changes in genetic sequence” (Weinhold,
2006). Epigenetic’s includes any process that changes gene activity but doesn’t change the
DNA sequence. This process is natural and necessary to many organism functions but
sometimes things can go wrong with this process and this can lead to major health and
behavior issues. One of the biggest studied epigenetic research is Cancer (Weinhold, 2006).
Different diseases such as cancer has different mutations that are not easily detected or
treatment correctly and can lead to the cancer returning. Knowing the epigenetics variation
can be very useful in treating a disease because without it one may just target one portion of
the multiple pathways involved and this will be useless in treating the disease. The way
treatment works depends on changes in the cells caused by epigenetics (Stefanska &
MacEwan, 2015)
