CHEM 40.

1 BIOCHEMICAL CALCULATIONS

General Instructions: Solve the following problems neatly and completely in your pink booklet. BOX or ENCIRLCE your final answers.

1. Glutathione is a conditionally non-essential amino acid that can be manufactured by the human body and does not need to be obtained
directly through diet. It is the major endogenous antioxidant produced by the cells to directly neutralize free radicals and reactive oxygen
compounds. What is the (a) molecular weight of glutathione (C10H17N3O6S)? If 30 grams of glutathione is dissolved in a solution, compute
for the (b) number of moles of Glutathione, (c) millimoles of N, (d) number of O atoms and (e) grams of H.

2. For the following concentrations, determine the equivalent of

a. 75µg/mg lyophilized protein in ppm

b. 6.3 x 103 mg/L of glycogen in % (w/v)

3. What mass in (in grams) of galactose, C6H12O6 (MM=180.156 g/mol) is required to prepare 250 mL of each of the following glucose
solutions?
a. 65.0% (w/v) b. 1.30 M

4. A 0.50 mL human saliva sample was placed in a 100-mL volumetric flask and was diluted to mark with buffer solution. From this solution,
10 mL was obtained and diluted to a volume of 250 mL. What is the dilution factor?

5. Aniline (C6H5NH2), a weak base, is one of the starting materials for the synthesis of organic dyes. Write the (a) dissociation reaction with
water, (b) ionization constant expression for a 50 mM aniline solution (pKb=9.40 @ 25 C). Calculate also the (c) [OH-] (in M), (d) pOH, (e)
pH, and (f) [H3O+] (in M) of the solution.

6. In the preparation of a standard stock solution for protein analysis, 50 mg of bovine serum albumin (BSA) was dissolved in deionized
distilled water to a final volume of 10.00 mL. What is the weight of BSA in 0.60 mL stock solution?

7. The BSA stock solution from the previous problem was then diluted to generate a set of standard solutions of known concentrations. After
performing biuret assay on these solutions, their absorbance at 540 nm were measured using a UV-vis spectrophotometer. The following
data were obtained.
Concetration of BSA (mg/mL) Absorbance
0 0
0.1 0.048
0.2 0.095
0.4 0.191
0.6 0.290
0.8 0.380
1.0 0.485

Calculate the (a) Linearity constant (r), (b) y-intercept, (c) Slope, and (d) Protein content of an unknown sample having an absorbance of
0.325.