https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/mohammed-irfan-bazeer-ahamed/week-03-hw-cell-free/index.htmlA. Compare Cell-Free Reaction Compositions 1. Why do potassium glutamate and magnesium glutamate concentrations differ between compositions? Which is more sensitive? Different roles → different optimal concentrations Potassium glutamate is mainly an ionic-environment reagent. K⁺ is the dominant intracellular cation and glutamate the dominant anion in E. coli, so K-glutamate is used to recreate cytoplasmic ionic strength/osmolarity and support general enzyme and ribosome activity. Its response curve is broad: Jewett & Swartz found maximum protein production at 175 mM potassium glutamate, but the optimum sits on a fairly flat plateau, and yields were “nearly insensitive to ammonium glutamate concentrations between 0 and 100 mM.” In other words, you can be off by tens of mM and lose little activity.Hugoen