What would happen if all nitrogen in your body disappeared?

Question

I'm working on a character able to manipulate nitrogen to his will, changing it's physical properties (like temperature, velocity and such) and making it bond to other atoms or molecules. Now, this got me thinking of the powers this magical ability would grant the character: the good old ice and fire combo (liquid nitrogen and nitroglicerine), bettering the soil for plant growth...

Of course his powers would be limited to his knowledge, to how much physics and chemistry he knows. This may be a big limitation since I'm no expert in neither, but that isn't the post's topic.

With great power comes great responsibility and potential for destruction, the destruction of life. In other words: the creation of death. The character could always cool or heat the nitrogen around an enemy in order to kill them, he could also concentrate nitrogen around the enemy's head so he suffocates, make the floor bellow them explode if the conditions are met, or even turn the water inside their body into acid (gruesome, I know), but...

What would happen if he displaced the nitrogen inside the opponent's body? If suddenly the nitrogen of the opponent's amino acids detached from the molecules. Say he pulled this move on the enemy's arm, what would happen to it? It seems to me like the aminoacids would turn into ionized molecules of acetic acid. What would happen if he did this to their hearth or their brain? Furthermore, how about detaching the nitrogen, not from the aminoacids, but from other thing... say, their DNA. What about then? Would the affected cells instantly die? Would this cause some weird cancer that'd kill the opponent slowly? Possibilities are endless and probably very disturbing!

What I'm asking for are possible consequences to these actions. Please do tell if you come up with some other power the character may have because of his ability!

Answer 1

Flesh puddle

Nitrogen is an integral element of nucleotides, which make up DNA and RNA. Cells wouldn't die instantly without DNA; on the shortest timescale and among other things, DNA is a template for RNA, which in turn is a template for protein. This individual's body now lacks not only the templates for transcription and translation, but also the ribosomes themselves, so nothing new will get synthesized.

Since it makes up ~78% of the atmosphere, the lungs will mostly evacuate, which will cause a large influx of air through their nose. If this doesn't happen quickly enough, they might experience some minor internal bleeding as the other organs squish inwards.

Unfortunately, there won't really be any organs left, which includes the skin. Proteins are held together by peptide bonds, so they would entirely dissociate into individual amino acids. While this has all sorts of complications within cells, the real problem is the dissolution of the extracellular matrix, which is composed largely of (protein) collagen fibers. Without the ECM to give structure to or anchor our cells, they'd flow freely like the mostly-liquid they are.