BIOLOGICAL MOLECULES:

macromolecules - large molecules composed of thousands of covalently connected atoms

Polymer - a long molecule consisting of many similar building blocks
Monomer – the building block
Three of the four classes of life’s organic molecules are polymers:
– Carbohydrates – Proteins – Nucleic acids

Creating and breaking down polymers:

• Dehydration/condensation reaction - two monomers bond together through the loss of a
water molecule
• Hydrolysis – two bonded monomers split apart using a water molecule

CLASS I.Carbohydrates
• Simplest carbohydrate monomers are monosaccharides
• More complex carbohydrate polymers are called polysaccharides
• Purpose: fuel and fuel storage, building material – Sugar – Cellulose
Examples of carbohydrates • Sugar, starch, cellulose, glucose
Sugars

Kinds of Carbohydrates:
1. Monosaccharides have molecular formulas that are usually multiples of CH2O
• Glucose is the most common monosaccharide
• Some common carbohydrate monomers…
– Fructose • Fruit sugar
– Glucose • Produced by photosynthesis, used as energy storage
– Ribose • Important in RNA (ribonucleic acid)

2. Disaccharides
• Two monosaccharides bond together using a dehydration reaction to create a
disaccharide
– The bond between two monosaccharides is called a glycosidic bond
• Examples of disaccharides:
– Sucrose • Table sugar
– Lactose • Sugar found in milk
– Maltose • The enzyme amylase breaks down starch to produce maltose
• “Mashing” is a step in beer fermentation where amylase produces maltose from the
plant starch in barley
Lactose intolerance
 Inability to digest the sugar in milk

3. Polysaccharides
• Many monosaccharide’s linked together through glycosidic bonds
• The structure and function of a polysaccharide are determined by its sugar monomers and
the positions of glycosidic bonds
• Two types of polysaccharides: storage and structural
Examples of polysaccharides
 • Storage
– Starch
• Two types of plant starches: amylopectin and amylose
– Glycogen • Branched chains of glucose found in animals
Storage polysaccharides
• Starch, a storage polysaccharide of plants, consists entirely of glucose monomers joined by
glycosidic bonds
• Stores energy in the potential chemical energy in the bonds of carbohydrates
– Plants store surplus starch as granules within organelles as amylose and amylopectin
– Animals also store starch in the form of glycogen in liver and muscle cells
• The simplest form of starch is amylose
• Chitin is in the exoskeleton of arthropods and the cell walls of many fungi

CLASS 2: Lipids
• The only class that does not form polymers
• Lipids are hydrophobic because they consist mostly of hydrocarbons, which form nonpolar
covalent bonds
• The most biologically important lipids are fats, phospholipids, and steroids
• Purpose: fuel storage, cell membranes
Fats
• Two components: glycerol and 3 fatty acids
• The major function of fats is energy storage
Glycerol is a three carbon alcohol with a hydroxyl group attached to each carbon
A fatty acid consists of a carboxyl group attached to a long carbon skeleton
Saturated fatty acids have the maximum number of hydrogen atoms possible and no
double bonds
– Each carbon ‘saturated’ with hydrogens
• Unsaturated fatty acids have one or more double bonds
 Monounsaturated fats have only one carbon-carbon double bond
 Polyunsaturated fats have two more carbon-carbon double bonds
Trans fats
• Produced by artificially saturating unsaturated fats by adding hydrogen – “hydrogenation”
– Nickel is added to unsaturated liquid oil as a catalyst – The mix is exposed to high
temperature and pressure as hydrogen gas is pumped through – Nickel is filtered out
• Hydrogenation also straightens the kinks in unsaturated fats, isomerizing from cis to trans
form
Triglycerides circulate in your blood. Saturated and trans fats clump together much
more easily in your blood vessels, forming plaque that blocks arteries
Phospholipids
• Phospholipids are the major component of all cell membranes
• Four components: glycerol, phosphate group, choline, 2 fatty acids
• The two fatty acid tails are hydrophobic, but the phosphate, glycerol, and choline form a
hydrophilic head
– The entirety of a fat molecule is hydrophobic
Steroids
• Steroids are lipids characterized by a carbon skeleton consisting of four fused rings
• Cholesterol, an important steroid, is a component in animal cell membranes
 Steroids in medicine
• Corticosteroids: used to treat a huge array of diseases and symptoms
• Anabolic steroids: mimic the effect of testosterone – Increase the rate of protein synthesis
in cells – Result in increased muscle mass and secondary sex characteristics – Excess
testosterone converted to estradiol, which causes gynomastia in men – Natural testosterone
synthesis is suppressed, resulting in testicular atrophy and reduced sperm production