BIO 111: FOUNDATIONS OF BIOLOGY
LECTURE 3: "Chemistry of Life - II"
Assumed Knowledge:
Chapter 4, except the isomer material.
Study Questions for Chapter 4 and Chapter 5:
- How many valence electrons does carbon have?
- Carbon linkages form the backbones of organic molecules. What structural
arrangements in these backbones are possible?
- There are 7 side groups that are important in biological molecules... draw
and label them.
- What is the basic structure of a sugar?
- What side groups do they have, and why are they soluble in water?
- What reaction links monosaccharides together into polysaccharides? What
reaction splits polysaccharides into monosaccharides?
- What are the respective polysaccharide energy storage molecules in plants
and animals?
- How does starch differ from cellulose, and what are the digestive implications
of these structural differences?
- What two major groups of organisms have chitin?
- List four types of lipid.
- Draw the structure of a fatty acid and show how they are attached to a glycerol
molecule.
- Why are fats such efficient molecules for energy storage? Relate your answer
to their structure.
- List three differences between saturated and unsaturated fats.
- What are hydrogenated fats and trans-fats?
- How are fats stored in animals?
- Draw the structure of a phospholipid.
- Which parts of a phospholipid are hydrophilic and hydrophobic?
- How do phospholipids behave in an aqueous solution, and why?
- What are the components of a wax molecule? How are they linked?
- What functions do waxes perform?
- Draw the general structure of a steroid.
- Draw a generalized amino acid, labeling the side groups.
- Show how two amino acids bind together.
- How does a polypeptide differ from a protein?
- Describe the four levels of protein structure.
- List five functions of proteins.
- Why are proteins so functionally diverse?
- What do chaperones do?
- Why are most of our pharmaceuticals still extracted from or modeled on natural
compounds, rather than designed from scratch?