‘Fight or Flight Response’ hormone——Adrenaline Christian W Buskey, Xin Chen, Rui Che and Barbara Brabetz Department of Natural Sciences & Mathematics, SUNY Cobleskill, Cobleskill, NY 12043 Abstract α2B adrenergic receptor mutation causes Autosomal Adrenaline is a hormone secreted by the body. When people dominant cortical myoclonus and epilepsy (ADCME) experience certain stimuli, such as excitement, fear, and The main symptoms of the disease are muscle cramps, seizures, seizures, stress, they release adrenaline, which causes the heart to even loss of consciousness, and complex mixtures. The α2B adrenergic beat faster, blood flow faster, and breathing faster. This can receptor is a subtype of the adrenergic receptor family. The give the body more energy and make people respond more human gene encoding this receptor has the symbol ADRA2B, which locate on quickly. We call this ‘Fight or Flight Response’. Extracts of the chromosome 2. Through research(De Fusco, Maurizio et al 2014), we found adrenal gland were first obtained by Polish physiologist that one kind of the mutation of A could lead to ADCME. They found a in- Napoleon Cybulski in 1895. In 1901, Takamine successfully frame insertion and deletion in α2B adrenergic receptor, which substitutes five isolated and purified the adrenaline. Nowadays, people more amino acids, HGGAL, with four new residues, QFGR(Figure 4). We can find and more use adrenaline as medicine to treat many kinds of that from the 3D structure(Figure 5), the mutant amino acid stretch diseases especially Rescue cardiac arrest and anaphylactic Gln_Phe_Gly_Arg is expected to result in different physical-chemical shock. properties of the domain in comparison to the wild type, due to the insertion of a very hydrophobic and bulky residue (Phe) and a positive charge (Arg). Figure 1 Figure 2 Introduction The chemical structure of epinephrine is C9H13O3N(Figure 1,2). Adrenaline is Figure 4 Figure 5 synthesized by a series of enzymes in the adrenal medulla(Figure 3). First, tyrosine is Treatment oxidized to L-Dihydroxyphenylalanine(L- As a rule, cortical myoclonus is treated with a combination of drugs. Sedation DOPA), then decarboxylated to get Dopamine. and ataxia are the main side effects of polytherapy. Large doses of drugs can Oxidation produces noradrenaline. The final effectively relieve symptoms. But it tends to come back in a few months, and step in the synthesis of adrenaline is the once the drug is stopped, it can get worse. To solve this problem, people still methylation of noradrenaline. The adrenaline need to continue their research. then reacts with the α- and β- adrenergic receptor, which causes vasoconstriction and Literature Cited vasodilation respectively. 1. De Fusco, M., Vago, R., Striano, P., Di Bonaventura, C., Zara, F., Mei, D., … Casari, G. (2014). The α2B adrenergic receptor is mutant in cortical myoclonus and epilepsy. Annals of Neurology, 75(1), 77– 87. http://doi.org/10.1002/ana.24028 Figure 3 2. Lieberman M, Marks A, Peet A (2013). Marks' Basic Medical Biochemistry: A Clinical Approach (4th ed.). Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. p. 175. ISBN 9781608315727. .