Pharmacology 2 Flashcards Preview

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Flashcards in Pharmacology 2 Deck (14)
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1
Q

Describe some of the sources of drugs?

A

Natural products from nature
Synthetic drugs from the pharmaceutical industry
Biotechnology using living systems to make therapeutic agents.
Gene therapy

2
Q

How do drugs act?

A

Interfering with a binding site - a receptor

3
Q

Give examples of binding sites

A
Cell surface and intracellular receptors
Ion channels
Carriers 
Enzymes 
Nucleic acids
4
Q

When will you get the maximum response from a drug?

A

When all the relevant receptors are bound to the drug

5
Q

What is the affinity of a drug?

A

It is the strength of chemical attraction between the drug and the receptor

6
Q

Why is the concentration / response graph curved?

A

Because it is more likely for a ligand to hit a free receptor at the start of a reaction then the end

7
Q

What graph is used to determine the EC50?

A

The log of drug concentration against the increasing response

8
Q

What is the EC50?

A

It is the concentration of a drug at half of its maximal response

9
Q

What does the EC50 indicate?

A

The affinity of the drug for the receptor, a smaller EC50 indicates a smaller amount of drug is needed to evoke the same response, therefore the drug has a higher affinity

10
Q

What does efficacy determine?

A

It determines how good the drug is at activating the receptor

11
Q

How does efficacy affect the EC50

A

It doesn’t

12
Q

What is an agonist?

A

It mimics the normal effect of the receptor

13
Q

What is an antagonist?

A

It blocks the normal effect of the receptor

14
Q

How many different receptors can a strand of drug bind to?

A

As many as the drug has conformational shapes to the receptor