WHAT IS BIOCHEMISTRY?

Biochemistry is the application of chemistry to the study of biological processes at

the cellular and molecular level. It emerged as a distinct discipline around the
beginning of the 20th century when scientists combined chemistry, physiology, and
biology to investigate the chemistry of living systems.

THE STUDY OF LIFE IN ITS CHEMICAL PROCESSES

Biochemistry is both life science and a chemical science – it explores the chemistry
of living organisms and the molecular basis for the changes occurring in living
cells. It uses the methods of chemistry, physics, molecular biology, and
immunology to study the structure and behavior of the complex molecules found in
biological material and the ways these molecules interact to form cells, tissues, and
whole organisms.

Biochemists are interested, for example, in mechanisms of brain function, cellular

multiplication and differentiation, communication within and between cells and
organs, and the chemical bases of inheritance and disease. The biochemist seeks to
determine how specific molecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, vitamins,
and hormones function in such processes. Particular emphasis is placed on the
regulation of chemical reactions in living cells.

“Biochemistry has become the foundation for understanding all biological

processes. It has provided explanations for the causes of many diseases in humans,
animals and plants.”

AN ESSENTIAL SCIENCE

Biochemistry has become the foundation for understanding all biological

processes. It has provided explanations for the cause of many diseases in humans,
animals, and plants. It can frequently suggest ways by which such diseases may be
treated or cured.

A PRACTICAL SCIENCE

Because biochemistry seeks to unravel the complex chemical reactions that occur
in a wide variety of life forms, it provides the basis for practical advances in
medicine, veterinary medicine, agriculture, and biotechnology. It underlies and
includes such exciting new fields as molecular genetics and bioengineering.

The knowledge and methods developed by biochemists are applied to in all fields
of medicine, in agriculture and in many chemical and health-related industries.
Biochemistry is also unique in providing teaching and research in both protein
structure/function and genetic engineering, the two basic components of the rapidly
expanding field of biotechnology.

A VARIED SCIENCE

As the broadest of the basic sciences, biochemistry includes many subspecialties

such as neurochemistry, bioorganic chemistry, clinical biochemistry, physical
biochemistry, molecular genetics, biochemical pharmacology, and
immunochemistry. Recent advances in these areas have created links among
technology, chemical engineering, and biochemistry.

BIOCHEMISTRY – AN OVERVIEW

Beginning with this chapter on carbohydrates, we will focus almost exclusively on

biochemistry, the chemistry of living systems. Like organic chemistry,
biochemistry is a vast subject, and we can discuss only a few of its facets. Our
approach to biochemistry will be similar to our approach to organic chemistry. We
will devote individual chapters to each of the major classes of biochemical
compounds, which are carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. Then we
will examine major types of chemical reactions in living organisms. In this first
“biochapter,” carbohydrates are considered.

The same functional groups found in organic compounds are also present in
biochemical compounds. Usually, however, there is greater structural complexity
associated with biochemical compounds as a result of polyfunctionality; several
different functional groups are present. Often biochemical compounds interact with
each other, within cells, to form larger structures. But the same chemical principles
and chemical reactions associated with the various organic functional groups that
we have studied apply to these larger biochemical structures as well.

Biochemistry is the study of the chemical substances found in living organisms

and the chemical interactions of these substances with each other. Biochemistry is
a field in which new discoveries are made almost daily about how cells
manufacture the molecules needed for life and how the chemical reactions by
which life is maintained occur. The knowledge explosion that has occurred in the
field of biochemistry during the last decades of the twentieth century and the
beginning of the twenty-first is truly phenomenal.

A biochemical substance is a chemical substance found within a living organism.

Biochemical substances are divided into two groups: bioinorganic substances and
bioorganic substances. Bioinorganic substances include water and inorganic salts.
Bioorganic substances include carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids.

BIOINORGANIC Water (about 70 %)

SUBSTANCES
Substances that do Inorganic salts (about 5%)
BIOCHEMICAL not contain carbon
SUBSTANCES Proteins (about 15 %)
BIOORGANIC
SUBSTANCES Lipids (about 8%)

Substances that Carbohydrates (about 2%)

contain carbon
Nucleic acids (about 2%)

As isolated compounds, bioinorganic and bioorganic substances have no life in and

of themselves. Yet when these substances are gathered together in a cell, their
chemical interactions are able to sustain life.

It is estimated that more than half of all organic carbon atoms are found in the
carbohydrate material of plants. Human uses for carbohydrates of the plant
kingdom extend beyond food. Carbohydrates in the form of cotton and linen are
used as clothing. Carbohydrates in the form of wood are used for shelter and
heating and in making paper.

Although we tend to think of the human body as made up of organic substances,

bioorganic molecules make up only about one-fourth of body mass, and another
4%-5% of body mass comes from inorganic salts.