Proteins and nucleic acids

Wednesday September 25th

.Looking at the following chemical formula, what kind of biomolecule would you infer this to be?  Why?

               C₁₉H₂₈O₂       

this is an example of lipid.  I know this because there is a large amount of Carbon and Hydrogen.  Some of you put Carbohydrates because it has carbon, hydrogen and oxygen but that is incorrect.  While carbohydrates are made up of these same three molecules the RATIO is much different.  Carbohydrates would have MUCH more Oxygen (usually as much oxygen as carbon)

I look at the nutrition facts on a weight loss shake and see there is 6grams of fat per serving, which seems like a lot of fat.  Only 2 of those grams are “Saturated", the other 4 are unsaturated.  Is there more “good fat” or “Bad fat” in this?  What is the structural difference?  There is more "GOOD Fat" which are the unsaturated fats.  The structural difference is in the type of bonds that hold it together.  Unsaturated fats have at least one double bond which puts a "kink" in the chain.  this allows it to stay a liquid at room temperature vs saturated fats that are straight chains which can stack on top of each other and remain a solid at room temp.

Proteins have MANY different functions – in fact proteins are pretty much involved in ALL cellular functions in one way or another.  The structures of these proteins are incredibly complex.  First, what subunits (monomers) make up protein?
Amino Acids

Next, what determines the function of different proteins?The STRUCTURE directly determines the proteins function.  How the amino acids interact with each other and fold on top of each other determines that structure.

We finished out the Organic Molecules section, then started into Enzymes.  Our next lab will focus on enzymes and we will soon be back to our "can of bull" case study!

here were the notes for today.