Why does life use carbohydrates as signaling molecules and p

Why does life use carbohydrates as signaling molecules, and proteins as enzymes?

Solution

Carbohydrates as Signalling molecules :

Recent studies revealed theat Carbohydrates are used as signalling molecules. Plants sysnthesize carbohydrates when there is enough light, carbon dioxide and water. Carbohydrates are systhesized by the plants throgh various physiological processes. And these processes occur in different cells and cell organelles of a plant. Thus sugar production is linked to various physiological functions of a cell, to identify the cell. So the plant monitors the sugar levels and perform the metabolic activities. This ability can be used to identify the stress conditions, factors influencing the performance of the cell. Mainly the sugars are used in the enrgy production and also on gene expression. Hence Carbohydrates are used as signillaling molecules. Scientists identified the sugar binding enzymes and harmones that help in identifying even the millimolar sugar levels in the plants.

Proteins as enzymes:

In nature all the enzymes are proteins , but not all the proteins are enzymes. Enzymes are nothing but the bilogical catalysts that incereses the rate of reaction by decreasing the activation energy. Enzymes are made up of many amino acids, which transform into different structures like primary structure ie., linear ,where amino acids are held together by peptide bonds , secondary structure ie., alfa helix and beta sheets, tertiary structure ie., 3 dimensional globular structure and tertiary structure ie., multilple subuints come and become compact in structure. And these structures form the activation sites , which are specific to only few substances. when the substances attach to the activation sites of the protein structures , the chemical changes occur to produce the new compounds and holds the substances for the availability to other compounds to react. Thus they particpate in the reactions ias enzymes.