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List the 6 nutrients required for all organisms. Describe their role briefly.
- Carbohydrates (including fibre for humans): Energy storage & supply, structure (in some organisms).
- Proteins: Structure, transport (membranes), enzymes, antibodies, most hormones.
- Lipids: Membranes, energy supply, thermal & electrical insulation, protective layer/padding, some hormones.
- Vitamins and minerals: Form parts of some larger molecules, take part in some metabolic reactions, some act as coenzymes or enzyme activators.
- Nucleic acids: Information molecules - carry instructions for life.
- Water: Take part in many reactions, support in plants, solvent for most metabolic reactions, transport.
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List the 4 key biological molecules.
- Carbohydrates
- Lipids
- Proteins
- Nucleic acids
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What is a risk factor?
A factor that increase your chance of developing a particular disease.
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The main chemical elements found in biological molecules are:
- Carbon
- Hydrogen
- Oxygen
- Nitrogen
- (These elements make up 99% of all organisms)
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Define metabolism.
The sum total of all the biochemical reactions taking place in the cells of an organism.
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What does biochemistry refer to?
Biochemistry refers to the chemical reactions involving biological molecules.
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What is the name for a metabolic reaction involved in breaking larger molecules into smaller ones? Give 1 example.
- Catabolic reactions
- eg. digestion
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What is the name for metabolic reactions involving building smaller molecules into larger ones? Give 1 example.
- Anabolic reactions
- eg. muscle growth.
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Carbon has a valency of 4. What does this mean?
- Means it can form covalent bonds with 4 other atoms.
- It can bond together to form long chains and rings, and possible to bond other atoms to these. Because of this multi-bonding feature, carbon is a kind of framework atom.
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Which types of biological molecules can form polymers?
- Carbohydrates, Proteins, Nucleic acids
- (Lipids are made of smaller molecules bonded together, they are not polymers because the smaller molecules are very different from each other.)
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What is the monomer and polymer of carbohydrates?
- Monomer - Monosaccharides (simple sugars)
- Polymer - Polysaccharides
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What is the monomer and polymer of proteins?
- Monomer - Amino acids
- Polymer - Polypeptides and proteins
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What is the monomer and polymer of nucleic acids?
- Monomer - Nucleotides
- Polymer - DNA and RNA
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What is the chemical reaction that links biological monomers together called? What does it also combine?
- Condensation reaction
- (same reaction is repeated many times to link many monomers together to form polymer)
- It also links the different subunits together in lipid molecules.
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What happens in condensation reactions?
- A water molecule is released
- A new covalent bond is formed
- A larger molecule is formed by the bonding together of smaller molecules
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What is the name of the reaction that splits larger molecules to monomers?
- Hydrolysis reaction
- (reverse of condensation)
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What happens in all hydrolysis reactions?
- A water molecule is used
- A covalent bond is broken
- Smaller molecules are formed by the splitting of a larger molecule
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Hydrogen bonds occur between what?
- Form when a slightly negatively charged part of a molecule comes close to a slightly positively charged hydrogen atom in the same (or another0 molecule. eg. in water.
- They are not strong bonds - can be easily broken (by heating for example) and often described as "interactions" or "forces".
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