Biological Molecules

• If birds stored energy as carbohydrates instead of FAT, they would weigh so much that they could not fly.
• Spider’s silk is stronger than steel and made up of PROTEIN.
• Carbohydrates, lipid, protein and nucleic acids are important organic compounds that are macromolecules composed of many subunits such as simple sugar (carbohydrate), amino acid (protein), glycerol and fatty acids (lipid), and nucleotide (nucleic acid).
• Carbohydrates are among the most abundant biochemical in the world and are composed of CARBON, HYDROGEN, AND OXYGEN in approximately 1 : 2 : 1 with a general formula, (Cn(H 2 O)N).
• Three types of carbohydrates are monosaccharide, dissacharide, and polysaccharide.
• Examples of Monosaccharides include Glucose, also known as dextrose, which provides energy to fuel all cellular processes and is the most abundant carbohydrate in the blood, also known as blood sugar.
• Examples of Dissacharides include Sucrose, commonly known as table sugar, which is a combination of glucose and fructose and is considered an excellent natural preservative.
• Examples of Polysaccharides include Cellulose, the most abundant organic molecules on earth, which provides support to cell walls of plants and other organisms such as bacteria.
• Examples of Lipids include Fats, a subgroup of lipids, which are composed of one glycerol and three fatty acids, hence called triglyceride.
• Five common nitrogen bases: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine found in DNA while in RNA adenine, cytosine, guanine and uracil.
• DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) is a blueprint for a builder which carries instructions that control the activities of the cell, discovered by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, composed of two helical strands of nucleotides forming a double helix.
• Nucleic acids are complex macromolecules which store information that determine the type and structure of all specific proteins found in an organism's body.
• Sphingolipids contain organic amino alcohol sphingosine and are located mainly in the cell membrane of mammalian cells, serving as structural components.
• Amino acids can be classified into essential and non-essential, with essential amino acids not naturally produced by the body and obtained through consumption of foods rich in protein, and non-essential amino acids naturally produced by the body.
• Waxes are simple lipids consisting of long chain alcohol and a fatty acid joined by ester, found as a coating of leaves and stem to prevent excessive loss of water in plants and serve as protection from disease and insects.
• Nucleic acids are polymers made up of monomers called nucleotides, each composed of three components: phosphate molecule, 5-carbon sugar (pentose), and nitrogen-containing base.
• Fats can be classified as saturated and unsaturated.
• Nitrogen bases are grouped into pyrimidine (A & G) and purines (C, T & U) bases.
• Examples of unsaturated fats include palm oil or corn oil.
• Phospholipids are a subgroup of lipids and are major structural components of all cell membranes.
• Each nitrogen base has a complementary base pair, pyrimidine paired with purine (A always paired in T in the DNA) while in RNA (A paired with U) lastly G always paired with C.
• Unsaturated fats have double bonds between two carbon atoms, making them liquid at room temperature.
• Steroids are composed of ring if structure where a variety of functional groups can be attached, including cholesterol and sex hormones.
• Examples of saturated fats include butter or margarine.
• Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is similar to a builder, uses those instructions to make proteins.
• Phospholipids are made up of glycerol, fatty acids, and phosphate group.
• Nucleotides are linked together by phosphodiester bonds to form polymer nucleic acid.
• Saturated fats have hydrocarbon chains that are straight and packed closely, making them solid at room temperature.
• Carbon - C, H, O
• Lipids - C, H, O
• Proteins - C, H, O, N
• Nucleic Acid - C, H, O, N, P