LIST OF HEADINGS

Organic Chemistry
Carbon Chemistry
Giant Molecules from smaller Building Blocks
Large Biological Molecules

Carbohydrates
Monosaccharide
Disaccharides
Polysaccharides

Lipids
Fats
Steroids

Proteins
The Monomers of Proteins: Amino Acids
Proteins as Polymers
Protein Shape

Nucleic acids
The process of science: Lactose Intolerance

ANS-2
SUMMARY OF BIOLOGICAL MOLECULES
Organic Compounds
Carbon has ability to form the skeletons of large, complex, diverse
molecules.
These carbon-based molecules are called organic compounds.

Carbon Chemistry
A carbon atom has 4 electrons in an outer shell and completes its
outer shell by sharing electrons with other atoms in four covalent
bonds.
The simplest organic compounds are hydrocarbons, which contain
only carbon and hydrogen atoms and the simplest hydrocarbon is
methane.
Larger hydrocarbons (such as octane, with eight carbons) are the
main molecules in the gasoline we burn in cars and other machines.

Giant Molecules from Smaller Building Blocks

Three categories of macromolecules are Carbohydrates (e.g. starchy foods),
Proteins (e.g. enzymes and the molecules of your hair),
Nucleic acids (e.g. DNA)
Monomers combine together through a dehydration reaction
removing a molecule of water.
Giant molecules are hydrolysed to make their monomers available to
cells.

Carbohydrates
These are classified as MonosaccharidesSimple sugars or monosaccharides cannot be broken down by

hydrolysis into smaller sugars.

They are the main fuel molecules for cellular work.

DisaccharidesTo form a disaccharide, two simple sugars are joined by a

dehydration reaction.
PolysaccharidesComplex carbohydrates or polysaccharides are long chains of
sugar units, polymers of monosaccharides. Starch and glycogen are
storage polysaccharides in plants and animals, respectively.

Lipids
In contrast to carbohydrates and most other biological molecules,
lipids are organic compounds that are hydrophobic.
Lipids are neither macromolecules nor polymers.

Fats

A typical fat consists of a glycerol molecule joined with

three fatty acid molecules via dehydration reactions
The resulting fat is called a triglyceride,
When there is a double bond in the carbon skeleton of the fatty acid it
is said to be unsaturated.
The fatty acids in the fat molecule that lack double bonds in their
hydrocarbon portion are saturated.
Unsaturated fats are converted to saturated fats by adding hydrogen,
a process called hydrogenation which creates trans-fat.

Proteins

Protein is a polymer constructed from amino acid monomers.Their

most important role is as enzymes and chemicals that change the
rate of a chemical reaction.

 All proteins are macromolecules constructed from a common set of

20 kinds of amino acids. Each amino acid consists of a central carbon
atom bonded to four covalent partners
Proteins as Polymers
Cells link amino acid monomers together by dehydration reactions.
The bond between adjacent amino acids is called a peptide bond.
The resulting long chain of amino acids is called polypeptide.
Protein Shape
A functional protein is one or more polypeptide chains precisely
twisted, folded, and coiled into a molecule of unique shape.
The levels of protein structure are: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
Proteins with more than one polypeptide chain have a fourth level
quaternary structure.

Nucleic acids
Nucleic acids are polymers made from monomers called nucleotides.
Each nucleotide contains three parts. At the center of each nucleotide
is a five-carbon sugar, deoxyribose in DNA and ribose in RNA.
Nucleic acids include RNA and DNA. DNA takes the form of a double
helix, two DNA strands (polymers of nucleotides) held together by
hydrogen bonds between nucleotide components called bases.
There are four kinds of DNA bases: adenine (A), guanine (G),
thymine (T) & cytosine (C).

THE PROCESS OF SCIENCE: Lactose Intolerance

Does Lactose Intolerance Have a Genetic Basis?

The enzyme lactase, like all proteins, is encoded by a DNA gene.

 Hypothesis: lactose intolerant people have a defect in their lactase

gene.
Observation: Most lactose-intolerant people have a normal version of
the lactase gene.
Result: Based on their observations of various experiments the
results showed a 100% correlation between lactose intolerance and a
nucleotide at a site approximately 14,000 nucleotides away.
Evolution and Lactose Intolerance in Humans
Most of the world's population are lactose intolerant as adults and
thus do not easily digest the milk sugar lactose.
It can be inferred that lactose intolerance is rare among northern
Europeans because the ability to tolerate lactose offered a survival
advantage to their ancestors.

ANS-3 QUESTION
For further study I would be interested to know about the hydrogenation procedure
through which trans-fat are made from unsaturated fat?
THANK YOU