2 Molecular biology

2.1 Molecules to metabolism

• most molecules that make up living things can be placed into one of four categories:
carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids
• these types of molecules interact with each other in complex reactions and sequences inside
of organism

Organic molecules: contain carbon and most of them contain carbon-carbon bonds. Many
compounds even though they contain carbon, they are not considered to be organic, eg carbon
dioxide. Since molecules that comprise living things (proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, nucleic acids)
all have carbon backbones, life on earth is said to be “carbon-based”.

Carbon-based life
• carbon has four valence electrons in its outer shell, which is suppose to hold 8 electrons
• carbon will share 4 electrons with one or more elements to fill its shell
• each time carbon shares an electron, a covalent bond is formed
• this means that carbon always forms 4 stable covalent bond either with another carbon of a
variety of elements
• carbon forms the backbone of all biological molecules because it easily forms four stable
bonds with itself and large variety of other elements, making it easy to make a whole bunch
of different types of molecules with different structures and functions.

Chemical compounds that are important to living things

Polymer is a generic name for long molecules made of many repeating parts. The small repeating
parts are called monomers. The biological macromolecules are all large polymers.

Molecule (macromolecules) Subcomponent (monomers)

carbohydrates monosaccharides
lipids Glycerol, fatty acids
Proteins (polypeptides) Amino acids
Nucleic acids nucleotides

category subcategory Example molecules

carbohydrates monosaccharides Glucose, galactose, fructose,
ribose
disaccharides Maltose, lactose, sucrose
polysaccharides Starch, glycogen, cellulose,
chitin
proteins Enzymes, antibodies, peptide
hormones
lipids triglycerides Fat stored in adipose (fat tissue)
phospholipids Lipids forming a bilayer in cell
membranes
 steroids Some hormones
Nucleic acids DNA, RNA, ATP

Drawing of glucose Drawing of saturated Fatty acid

Drawing of Ribose Drawing of amino acid

Metabolism reaction controlled by enzymes

• inside of a cell, millions of molecules are colliding with each other at any one time
• most collisions result in nothing more than bouncing off and changing directions
• but some collisions result in enough energy to start a chemical reaction