After the high school group finishes their tour, Dr. Wayne sees two patients. Je
ID: 3518029 • Letter: A
Question
After the high school group finishes their tour, Dr. Wayne sees two patients. Jeff Slater is a biochemist working for a bio warfare lab at the CDC. He is currently working on a project to develop a new neurotoxin and is using a sarin as a model substance. Suddenly while working the lab alarms go off and Jeff accidentally knocks a vial of sarin over and a bit of the liquid splashes onto his arm between his gloves and lab coat. He suddenly starts to feel dizzy, his heart starts pounding harder than ever, and he has shortness of breath. He feels incredibly sluggish and tries to get to the exit. As he approaches the lab door, his muscles cramp up and he falls down and hits his head, knocking him unconscious. His colleague from across the hall happens to see him fall and calls for help. Jeff is given oxygen and taken to the nearby hospital, which happens to have a neuromuscular specialist. The sounding of the alarm turns out to have been just routine testing of a new system. Questions 1. What symptoms is Jeff experiencing? 2. What is the role of AChE in the NMJ?
Explanation / Answer
1) Jeff is experiencing muscle cramp, nausea, shortness of breathing due to increase in concentration of acetylcholine as its inhibits the effects of acetylcholinesterase which helps in degradation of acetylcholine in the synaptic cleft to relax the muscle. As the muscle is not relaxing it is continuously contracts the muscle and thus muscle cramp occurs.
2) AChE acetylcholinesterase which helps in degradation of acetylcholine in the synaptic cleft to relax the muscle. As acetylcholine transmits signals between neurons of CNS to muscle fibres it helps in the stimulation of muscle contraction. After contraction of muscle contraction muscle needs to be relaxed which is done by the AChE so that the muscle is prevented from muscle cramp.