Function
Major contributors to oncotic pressure (known also as colloid osmotic pressure) of plasma; carriers for various substances.
Albumin is a soluble, monomeric protein which comprises about one-half of the blood serum protein. Albumin functions primarily as a carrier protein for steroids, fatty acids, and thyroid hormones and plays a role in stabilizing extracellular fluid volume. Albumin is a globular un-glycosylated serum protein of molecular weight 65,000. Albumin is synthesized in the liver as preproalbumin which has an N-terminal peptide that is removed before the nascent protein is released from the rough endoplasmic reticulum. The product, proalbumin, is in turn cleaved in the Golgi vesicles to produce the secreted albumin.
Read more about this topic: Serum Albumin
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“Advocating the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reformism. It is a total denial of the creative function of difference in our lives. Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)
“Uses are always much broader than functions, and usually far less contentious. The word function carries overtones of purpose and propriety, of concern with why something was developed rather than with how it has actually been found useful. The function of automobiles is to transport people and objects, but they are used for a variety of other purposes—as homes, offices, bedrooms, henhouses, jetties, breakwaters, even offensive weapons.”
—Frank Smith (b. 1928)
“Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)