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importance of nitrogen in living organisms?

Hi, I am stuck on an essay on the importance of nitrogen in living organisms. What can i talk about? Thanks
Original post by johnny786
Hi, I am stuck on an essay on the importance of nitrogen in living organisms. What can i talk about? Thanks


What level are you studying at?
Nitrogen is taken up by organisms to produce the nitrogenous nucleotide bases in DNA
It’s also important in proteins as it’s in amino acids (think of the heart, smooth muscle and skeletal muscles, but also in cell and nuclear receptors, transporters - facilitated diffusion, active transport)
In Gram positive (I think) they have nitrogenous sugars in their cell wall (NAG and NAM).
As well as being in DNA they are also in RNA (mRNA, tRNA, rRNA, miRNA, etc)
Can also down the route of the nitrogen cycle where nitrogenous compounds are metabolised (I think) by certain bacteria.
Plants need nitrogen as well as bacteria/eukaryotes
Could mention the Ornithine cycle although I don’t remember it well enough to know if it’d be relevant. I think it removes nitrogen allowing the carbon skeletons to be used for metabolism/storage which is a way of allowing an organism to get more energy from their diet and remove toxic compounds

From there you could argue that it’s more harmful than good as amino groups are toxic to the body and can’t be stored.
Could also argue that the nitrogen in the air is inane and so another atom e.g. oxygen could be seen as more important.
(edited 6 years ago)
enzymes-proteins built from amino acids and are involved in every biochemical process I can think of
Haemoglobin another very significant protein based and therefore nitrogen based molecule
Original post by gdunne42
enzymes-proteins built from amino acids and are involved in every biochemical process I can think of
Haemoglobin another very significant protein based and therefore nitrogen based molecule


From there you can link it to full blood count blood tests and how Hb is used to assess health in part

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