Transkaryotic Therapies - The Technology Overview TKT recently received its first product approval. Shortly thereafter, Replagal was approved in Norway. The human body is comprised of approximately 75 trillion cells. The cells perform a wide array of functions, from transporting oxygen, to defending against infection, to movement, reproduction and thinking.
Proteins are complex molecules consisting of long chains of amino acids.
There are twenty types of amino acids, and proteins may contain tens, hundreds, or even thousands of them. Proteins can also contain additional components, including sugars, metals such as iron, zinc and copper, and sulfate and phosphate groups, to name a few. Every protein molecule has a three-dimensional shape determined by its chemical structure, a structure that is required for proper biological function. The human body is made up of approximately 100,000 types of proteins. A gene is the cell's recipe for synthesizing a protein, and the human genome is the collection of recipes for all 100,000 proteins.