LESSON 1

Biochemistry - The branch of science that deals with the chemical and physiochemical processes and
substances that are occurring within living organisms.

Importance of Biochemistry
 The common ground of understanding in all of the sciences that involves medicine, agriculture,
and other fields
 The chemical basis of some central processes in Biology is explained in this field
 It allows scientists to study diseases and find cures
 It allows us to understand Genetics
 It enables us to understand life, in general.

CELLS - is the smallest unit that is capable of performing life functions.

There are 2 types of cells:

a. Prokaryotic
b. Eukaryotic
Prokaryotic - Do not have structures surrounded by membranes
- Few internal structures
- One-celled organisms, Bacteria
Eukaryotic – contain organelles surrounded by membranes
- most living organisms

CELL PARTS: ORGANELLES

Cell Membrane - Outer membrane of cell that controls movement in and out of the cell
- Double layer (Phospolipid bilayer)\\

Nucleus - Directs cell activities

- Separated from the cytoplasm by a nuclear membrane
- Contains genetic material – DNA

Nuclear Membrane - Surrounds nucleus

- Made of two layers
- Openings allow material to enter and leave nucleus

Nucleolus - Inside nucleus

- Contains RNA to build proteins

Cytoplasm - Helps in Cell respiration

- Helps the cell to maintain its shape
- Acts as store of important chemicals
- It is the physical basis of all metabolic activity
- Aids to dissolve waste products

Endoplasmic Reticulum - Moves materials around in cell

 - Smooth type: lacks ribosomes
- Rough type (pictured): ribosomes embedded in surface
- Site for Protein synthesis and Lipid metabolism

Ribosomes - Each cell contains thousands

- Make proteins
- Found on ribosomes & floating throughout the cell

Mitochondria - Produces energy through chemical reactions – breaking down fats & carbohydrates
- Controls level of water and other materials in cell
- Recycles and decomposes proteins, fats, and carbohydrates

Golgi Bodies - Protein 'packaging plant'

- Move materials within the cell
- Move materials out of the cell

Lysosome - Digestive 'plant' for proteins, fats, and carbohydrates

- Transports undigested material to cell membrane for removal
- Cell breaks down if lysosome explodes

Vacuoles - Membrane-bound sacs for storage, digestion, and waste removal

- Contains water solution
- Help plants maintain shape
Chloroplast - Usually found in plant cells
- Contains green chlorophyll
- Where photosynthesis takes place

THE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF LIFE

Organic compounds - are chemical substances that make up organisms
- Help organisms carry out life processes

All contain the elements carbon & hydrogen

Carbon - is the major element
- Without carbon, life as we know it would cease to exist

Elements of Life
96% of living organisms is made of:
- carbon (C)
- hydrogen (H)
- oxygen (O)
- nitrogen (N)
The human body is mostly water
Lean muscle: 75% water
Blood: 83% water
Body fat: 25% water
Bone: 22% water
All living organisms require water to live
Water - is a polar molecule
- Each atom has a partial charge
- Molecule has zero net charge
Polar molecules - have special properties
- Good solvents
- Bond with each other (cohesion)
- Take longer to heat and cool
Water molecules - are attracted to molecules of solid surfaces (adhesion)
Adhesion - allows water to move through very small pores or tubes against gravity (capillary action)

C, H, O, N - Put together in different ways to build living organisms

What are bodies made of?

- Carbohydrates
 sugars & starches
- proteins
- (lipids)
- nucleic acids
 DNA, RNA

CARBOHYDRATES - Contain only carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen

 The most common of the four major types of organic compounds
 All consist of one or more smaller units called monosaccharides.
LIPIDS - Contain carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen
- include substances such as fats and oils
- Monomer🡪 fatty acids & glycerol
- Lipid molecules consist of glycerol & 3 fatty acids
- Other types of lipids can contain additional molecules.
- All lipids are hydrophobic; non-polar

Types of Lipids
Lipids - may consist of fatty acids alone or in combination with other compounds; several types of lipids
consist of fatty acids combined with a molecule of alcohol:
Triglycerides are the main form of stored energy in animals. This type of lipid is
commonly called fat
Phospholipids are a major component of the membranes surrounding the cells
of all organisms
Steroids (or sterols) have several functions. The sterol cholesterol is an
important part of cell membranes and plays other vital roles in the body. Other steroids
are male and female sex hormones

Saturated fatty acids - are solids at room temperature

Saturated - refers to the placement of hydrogen atoms around the carbon atoms
Saturated fatty acid, have a COOH group; all the C atoms (other than the C in the –COOH group) are
bonded to two or more H atoms with single bonds
- they form straight chains
Structure - allows saturated fatty acids to be packed together tightly; dense storage of chemical energy
- fatty tissues of animals contain mainly saturated fatty acids
Unsaturated fatty acids - are liquids at room temperature
- also have a COOH group; some carbon atoms are not bonded to as many
hydrogen atoms as possible because they are bonded to one or more
additional groups, including double and triple bonds between carbons
- they cause the chain to bend - do not form straight chains
- are found mainly in plants, especially in fatty tissues such as nuts and seeds.

PROTEINS - Contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen

- Made of smaller units called amino acids (monomers).
 20 different common amino acids make proteins
 Small proteins can contain just a few hundred amino acids.
 Yeast proteins average 466 amino acids.
 The largest known proteins are the titins, found in muscle, which are composed
from almost 27,000 amino acids.
Functions of Proteins
- Essential part of all organisms; that serve many functions
 provide a scaffolding that maintains the shape of cells
 make up the majority of muscle tissues
 some are enzymes that speed up chemical reactions in cells
 others are antibodies
 Still other help carry messages or materials in and out of cells or around the body
- Most important traits of proteins, allowing them to carry out these functions, is their ability
to bond with other molecules. They can bond with other molecules very specifically and
tightly

Amino Acid Structure

- Same basic structure
 ‘R’ group; amino group (NH2); and carboxyl group (COOH)
Protein Structure
- Amino acids can bond together to form short chains called peptides or longer chains called
polypeptides
- Protein consists of one or more polypeptide chains

NUCLEIC ACIDS - Contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus

- made of smaller units called nucleotides.
Nucleic acids are found not only in all living cells but also in viruses

Types of nucleic acids include:

 deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
 ribonucleic acid (RNA).

Structure of Nucleic Acids

- Consists of one or two chains of nucleotides held together by chemical bonds
- Each individual nucleotide unit consists of three parts:
 a base (containing nitrogen)
- four bases: Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, and
Thymine in DNA, or Uracil in RNA
  a sugar
(deoxyribose in DNA, ribose in RNA)
 a phosphate group (containing phosphorus)
- RNA consists of a single chain of nucleotides, DNA consists of two chains of nucleotides

Lesson Summary

Carbon’s exceptional ability to form bonds with other elements and with itself allows it to form a huge
number of large, complex molecules called organic molecules. These molecules make up organisms and
carry out life processes.

Carbohydrates are organic molecules that consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. They are made up
of repeating units called saccharides. They provide cells with energy, store energy, and form structural
tissues.

Lipids are organic compounds that consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. They are made up of fatty
acids and other compounds. They provide cells with energy, store energy, and help form cell
membranes.

Proteins are organic compounds that consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and, in some cases,
sulfur. They are made up of repeating units called amino acids. They provide cells with energy, form
tissues, speed up chemical reactions throughout the body, and perform many other cellular functions.

Nucleic acids are organic compounds that consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and
phosphorus. They are made up of repeating units called nucleotides. They contain genetic instructions
for proteins, help synthesize proteins, and pass genetic instructions on to daughter cells and offspring.

LESSON 2

Carbohydrates - means “hydrate of carbon” and derives from the formula Cn(H2O)m

Glucose (blood sugar): C6H12O6, which can be written as C6(H2O)6

Sucrose (table sugar): C12H22O11, which can be written as C12(H2O)11

Produced from CO2 and H2O via photosynthesis in plants

Most carbohydrates - are polyhydroxyaldehydes, polyhydroxyketones, or compounds that yield them

after hydrolysis.

Carbohydrates have the following functions in humans:

Carbohydrate oxidation provides energy.

Carbohydrate storage, in the form of glycogen, provides a short-term energy reserve.

Carbohydrates supply carbon atoms for the synthesis of other biochemical substances (proteins, lipids,
and nucleic acids).

Carbohydrates form part of the structural framework of DNA and RNA molecules.

Carbohydrates linked to lipids are structural components of cell membranes.

Carbohydrates linked to proteins function in a variety of cell-cell and cell–molecule recognition

processes.

Monosaccharides have the general formula CnH2nOn, with one of the carbons being the carbonyl group
of either an aldehyde or a ketone.

suffix -ose indicates that a molecule is a carbohydrate,

prefixes tri-, tetr-, pent- - indicate the number of carbon atoms in the chain.

Aldoses - containing an aldehyde group

Ketoses - containing a ketone group

Aldotriose glyceraldehyde and ketotriose dihydroxyacetone. - There are only two trioses

Fischer Projections - A two-dimensional representation showing the configuration of a stereocenter;

horizontal lines represent bonds projecting forward from the stereocenter, and vertical lines represent
bonds projecting toward the rear

D-Monosaccharide - a monosaccharide that, when written as a Fischer projection, has the – OH group
on its penultimate carbon to the right

L-Monosaccharide - a monosaccharide that, when written as a Fischer projection, has the – OH group on
its penultimate carbon to the left

Amino Sugars - a monosaccharide in which an – OH group is replaced with an – NH2 group

N-Acetyl-D-glucosamine - a derivative of D-glucosamine, is a component of many polysaccharides,

including connective tissue such as cartilage.

Hemiacetals – form when aldehydes and ketones react with alcohols

- A molecule containing a carbon bonded to one – OH group and one – OR group; the product
of adding one molecule of alcohol to the carbonyl group of an aldehyde or ketone

Haworth Projections - a way to view furanose and pyranose forms of monosaccharides;

Anomeric carbon - is the hemiacetal carbon of the cyclic form of a monosaccharide

Furanose - a five-membered cyclic hemiacetal form of a monosaccharide

Pyranose - a six-membered cyclic hemiacetal form of a monosaccharide

Conformation Representations - a five-membered furanose ring is so close to being planar that Haworth
projections provide adequate representations of furanoses. For pyranoses, however, the six-membered
ring is more accurately represented as a chair conformation
Mutarotation - the change in the specific rotation that occurs when an α or β form of carbohydrate is
converted to an equilibrium mixture of the two forms

Glycoside - a carbohydrate in which the –OH group on its anomeric carbon is replaced with an –OR
group

Glycosidic bond - the bond from the anomeric carbon of a glycoside to an –OR group

Alditol - the product formed when the CHO group of a monosaccharide is reduced to a CH2OH group

Reducing Sugar - a carbohydrate that reacts with a mild oxidizing agent under basic conditions to give an
aldonic acid; the carbohydrate reduces the oxidizing agent

Enzyme-catalyzed oxidation of the primary alcohol at carbon 6 of a hexose yields a uronic acid. Enzyme-
catalyzed oxidation of D-glucose, for example, yields D-glucuronic acid, shown here in both its open-
chain and cyclic hemiacetal forms

Mono- and di phosphoric esters - are important intermediates in the metabolism of monosaccharides.

Disaccharides – a carbohydrate containing two monosaccharide units joined by a glycosidic bond

Oligosaccharides - carbohydrate containing from six to ten monosaccharide units, each joined to the
next by a glycosidic bond

Glycosidic bond - Bond between the anomeric carbon atom of a monosaccharide and an –OR group.

Sucrose (table sugar) - is the most abundant disaccharide in the biological world.

Lactose - is the principal sugar present in milk.

Maltose - derives its name from its presence in malt, the juice from sprouted barley and other cereal
grains. It consists of two units of D- glucopyranose joined by a glycosidic bond between carbon 1 (the
anomeric carbon) of one unit and carbon 4 of the other unit.

- is a reducing sugar; the hemiacetal group on the right unit of D-glucopyranose is in

equilibrium with the free aldehyde and can be oxidized to a carboxylic acid.

Polysaccharides - carbohydrate containing a large number of monosaccharide units, each joined to the
next by one or more glycosidic bonds. Three important polysaccharides, all made up of glucose units,
are starch, glycogen, and cellulose.

Starch - is used for energy storage in plants. It is found in all plant seeds and tubers and is the form in
which glucose is stored for later use. It can be separated into two principal polysaccharides: amylose and
amylopectin.

Glycogen - like starch, is a polysaccharide containing only glucose units. It is the glucose storage
polysaccharide in humans and animals. Its function is thus similar to that of starch in plants, and it is
sometimes referred to as animal starch.

Cellulose - the structural component of plant cell walls, is the most abundant naturally occurring
polysaccharide.
 - is an unbranched glucose polymer.

Chitin - is the second most abundant naturally occurring polysaccharide.

Acidic polysaccharides - are a group of polysaccharides that contain carboxyl groups and/or sulfuric
ester groups. It plays important roles in the structure and function of connective tissues.

Hyaluronic acid - is the simplest acidic polysaccharide present in connective tissue. It is most abundant
in embryonic tissues and in specialized connective tissues.

Heparin - is a small highly-sulfated polysaccharide with only 15–90 disaccharide residues per chain.