PATHWAY ASSEMBLY ASSISTED BY COMPUTER: TEACHING ANAEROBIC GLYCOLYSIS

Abstract

The  knowledge on  metabolic pathways  is required in  the higher education courses on biological  field.  This  work  presents  a  computer assisted  approach for metabolic pathways self study, based  on their assembly, reaction-by-reaction.  Anaerobic glycolysis was used as a model.  The software was designed to users who have basic knowledge on enzymatic catalysis,  and  to be used with or without teacher’s help. Every reaction is detailed, and the student can move forward only after having assembled each reaction correctly. The software  contains a tutorial  to help users both  on its use, and  on the  correct assembly of each reaction.  The software was field tested  in the basics biochemistry disciplines to the students of Physical Education, Nursing, Medicine and Biology from the State University of Campinas  –  UNICAMP, and in the physiology discipline to the students of Physical Education from the Institute Adventist Sao Paulo – IASP. A database using MySQL was structured to collect data on the software using . Every action taken by the students were recorded. The statistical analysis showed that the number of tries decreases as the students move forward on the pathway assembly. The most difficult reaction besides the first one, were the ones that presented  pattern changes, for example, the sixth reaction was the  first oxidation-reduction reaction. In the first reaction the most frequent mistakes  were using the phosphohexose isomerase as enzyme or having forgotten to include ATP among the substrates. In the sixth reaction the most frequent mistakes was having forgotten to include NAD+ among the substrates. The recorded data analysis can be used by the teachers to give in their lectures, special attention to the reactions were the students made more mistakes.