Biochemistry

Introduction

Aira Sharida H. Villapando, RND, MSFS

“The quality of your life is dependent upon the quality of the
life of your cells. If the bloodstream is filled with waste
products, the resulting environment does not promote a
strong, vibrant, healthy cell life - nor a biochemistry capable
of creating a balanced emotional life of an
individual”
-Tony Robbins
Learning Objectives
• To define biochemistry and identify its uses and
importance
• To enumerate the cell parts and their functions
• To distinguish among the various types of
chemical formula
• To differentiate between the major types of
chemical bond
• To enumerate some important functional groups
• To identify the major biomolecules in
biochemistry
The Science of Biology
Chemistry
Biochemistry Organic Chemistry
 Biochemistry

• the study of the chemistry

of life processes

Berg et al., 2015

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Biology
• Bios = life
• Logos = study
 Biology
• The science that
deals with
structures, functions of
living things,
and their relationship with
the environment
(Morales-Ramos & Ramos, 2017)
 • the science that deals with matter; its
structure and properties and the
Chemistry transformations from one form to
another
Bettelheim et al., 2020

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Organic
Chemistry
• the branch of chemistry that deals
with the properties and changes in
organic compounds.

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Importance of Studying
Biochemistry
Chapter 1: It's All About You
• "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.”

(McGill University, 2021)

 How do our bodies work?

It leads us to
What are the biochemical
fundamental similarities and differences
understanding of among many forms of life?

life
How is food digested to
provide cellular energy?
Understand
• diabetes, sickle cell
important anemia and diseases,
issues in molecularly
medicine, • AIDS, cancer, Alzheimer's
Disease
health and
nutrition
Advance biotechnology
industries
• Biotechnology
• the application of biological
concepts and systems to make
products beneficial to man.
• encompasses manufacturing
processes that include the
advances in genetic
engineering
Areas to Study
• Structural and Functional Biochemistry:
chemical structures and three-dimensional
arrangements of molecules.
• Informational Biochemistry: Language for
storing biological data and for transmitting
that data in cells and organisms.
• Bioenergetics: the flow of energy in living
organisms and how it is transferred from
one process to another.
 Tools
“Knowledge from general chemistry,
organic chemistry and biology are all
together applied to biological
systems”

• chemical structures and reactivities

of molecules that participate in
cellular reactions
• biological function of cellular
molecules
• how the pieces and different
pathways fit together
II. Biological aspects
Of Biochemistry
 Study of living organisms

Biology
and dead organisms
Three Major
Divisions
• Microbiology
• Botany
• Zoology
SMALLPO
X
• 10,000 years ago, North
eastern Africa
• Attacks skin cells, bone
marrow, spleen and lymph
nodes
• Fever, vomiting, rashes
 VARIOLATION

1022 AD. Buddhist nun living in O Mei Shan (Sichuan, China)

1700s Variolation evolved
Cowpox
• "I had cowpox, I will not develop smallpox" - dairy maid
May 1796
• Sarah Nelmes, fresh cowpox
lesions
• Used matter from her pustules
• Inoculated James Phipps
• Few days of fever and
discomfort --> recovered
• After two months, Jenner
inoculated Phipps with
smallpox
• No disease developed
Life and Its
Beginnings
ARISTOTLE
• Proposed the theory of spontaneous
generation
• Also called abiogenesis
• Idea that life originates from
nonliving matter.
• Idea lasted almost 2000 years
Early Beliefs
• people based their beliefs on their
interpretations of what they saw
happening around them
• No scientific method used
• Untested observations
 • Every year in the spring, the Nile River flooded areas of
Egypt along the river, leaving behind nutrient-rich mud
Example of that enabled the people to grow that year’s crop of food.
Observations • However, along with the muddy soil, large numbers of
frogs appeared that weren’t around in drier times
Conclusion:
Muddy soil gave rise to the frogs!!!
Other
beliefs:
• fleas came from sweat
• mice came from garbage
• flies and maggots came from
dead and decaying meat
Early Scientific
Experiments
 Jan Baptista van Helmont

Sweaty Shirt

Creation Studies Institute,, n.d.)

Francesco Redi (1668)
• An Italian physician who did an experiment with flies and wide-mouth
jars containing meat
• Evidence against spontaneous generation:
 John Needham

• Challenged Redi's experiment

• FLAW : He did not heat it long enough to kill all the microbes
Boiled broth containing
meat and vegetables
Results were not taken
by believers of
spontaneous
generation: "air was
needed for spontaneous
generation to occur!"

Lazzaro Spallanzani
Louis Pasteur
 Unifying
Themes Of Life
Lesson 1.5:
General Biology 1

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"The animals that grow
in water.."
What is
Life????
The Unifying
Themes
of Life
Gathering and Using Energy
Nutrient Uptake and Processing

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 Metabolism
"combination of different chemical reactions"
ENERGY
Plants are AUTOTROPHS Animals are HETEROTROPHS

Capture light energy Eat

Digest

Absorb

Make glucose
 Both of these example organisms

Cellular respiration breakdown glucose in cellular

respiration to make ATP energy
Nutrition
• All living organisms need to feed
in order to survive, grow, and
reproduce
• Nutrition: the process by which
organism acquire food
• "Malnutrition"
Maintaining
Internal Balance
Homeostasis, Excretion
Excretion

• Waste products are produced and

therefore should be removed from the
body
• Metabolic wastes: CO2, water, mineral
salts and nitrogenous waste products
• Organs: skin, lungs, liver, kidneys ,large
intestine and urinary bladder

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Homeostasis
"Maintaining a stable equilibrium"
HOMEOSTASI
S
• Enzymes need a
certain pH range
 Turns on the cooling
system

HOMEOSTA skin blood

vessels dilate
SIS
Body temp
decreases
• Maintaining
homeostasis can be
maintaining a certain HEAT Sweat glands initiate

temperature sweating; evaporation

Body temp COLD

increases
• The body have all kinds of
feedback systems skin blood
vessels constrict
in place to maintain
homeostasis Sk. Muscles COLD
contract; shivers
= heat
Responding, Adapting &
Evolving
Motility, Irritability, Individual Adaptation, Evolutionary Adaptation
Motility or Walking, flying, swimming, gliding, jumping
Locomotion
 • Ability to respond
Irritability appropriately to
/ sensitivit stimulus
• "response/tropism":
y reaction to stimuli
Coordination of body systems
INTERNAL STIMULI

I am starving!

DANGER!

EXTERNAL STIMULI
Individual
Adaptation
• Ability to adjust to changes in
the environment
• Happens more slowly than
response to stimulus
• Higher lung volume capacity of
swimmers versus non-swimmers
Evolutionary
Adaptation
Living organisms have the ability to adapt to their
environment through the process of evolution
 VARIATIONS

Long neck
prevails

Long necks vs Short necks

Extinct

During evolution, changes occur in populations, and the organisms in the population become
better able to metabolize, respond, and reproduce. They develop abilities to cope with their
environment that their ancestors did not have.
Reproducing and
Continuing Life
Growth and Development, Reproduction, Heredity
 Growth and Increase in size

Development Increase in complexity stages in life cycle

 Bacteria

Copy DNA

Splits into 2

Asexual and Sexual Reproduction

Living organisms have genetic material
to code for development and growth
Heredity:
Unity
Amidst
Diversity
DNA: molecule of life that
carries the instruction for
assembling protein
Living and Interacting
Organization of Life : Vertical and Horizontal Dimension

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Biological Levels of Organization

Organism

Organ-system
Organ

Tissue

Cell
Vertical
Dimension
• Population: same kind of
organism in an area
• Community: different population
sharing the same habitat
 • Show diversity and richness of organisms
Horizontal • Biologists classified the organisms into 3 groups
known as the 3 domains of the living world
Dimension • Reclassified into kingdoms
The Cell & Its
Beginning
Lesson 2.1
Late 1500's
• Hans and Zaccharias Janssen
• Dutch lens grinders, father and son
• Produced first compound microscope
1661, King Charles
II of England

• commissioned Sir Christopher

Wren to create a series of
microscopical studies.
• Wren obliged
• but after a few presentations found
he didn't have the time and gave up
the project to an upcoming scientist
with something of a knack for
drawing and mechanics.
 Robert Hooke
(1635-1703)
• Insects and everyday objects
• Devised a microscope that can
magnify every sort of material he can
find.
• Most commemorative work: thin slice
of a cork from a bark of an oak tree
• Looked empty, like monk's chamber
• Cellulae = small room
• Micrographia
 Antonie van
Leeuwenhoek
(1632-1723)
• Observed microscopic things
moving in pond water
• Animalcules = little animals
• First to observe living cells
The Cell Theory
History
Matthias Jakob
Schleiden -- 1838
• German Botanist
• Studied plant cells
• Discovered that plant parts are made of cells
• CONCLUSION: "All plants are
made of cells"
Theodor Schwann
-- 1839
• German scientist who
studied animals
• Saw that all animals he
studied were cellular
• CONCLUSION: "All
animals are made of
cells"
Rudolf Carl
Virchow -- 1858
• German physician who studied cell
reproduction
• CONCLUSION: "Where a cell
exists, there must have been a
preexisting cell."
The Cell
Theory
• All living organisms are
composed of one or more
cells.
• Cells are the smallest and
basic units of structure and
function in organisms.
• Cells arise only from
previously existing cells.
Basic Cell Types
 Fundamental
Structural Parts
• Cell membrane or plasma membrane
• Regulates the passage of materials
• Cytoplasm
• Gel-like substance making up the
cell's internal environment
• Nucleus
• Contains the genetic material
that provide instructions to make
proteins, regulates activities, and
enable cells to reproduce
Classification
According to
Number
• Unicellular: Organisms made
up of a single cell
• Amoeba, Paramecium,
Euglena, bacteria
• Multicellular: Organisms
made up of more than one
cell
• Humans: 1oo trillion cells
Classificatio
n
According
to
Complexity
Prokaryote
• Lacks membrane-bound
organelles
• Has a single usually
circular DNA
• Lacks
compartmentalization
• Adapted to most types of
environment
 • Cell Wall
Cell Parts of • Plasma Membrane
• Cytoplasm
Prokaryotes • Pili
Prokaryote
Reproduction
• Most by binary fission
• Asexual method
• Genetically identical
Eukaryotes

• Have a membrane-bound nucleus

• Possess membrane bound organelles
• Structurally complex
• May have a cell wall (Plants)
Varieties of Cells in the
Body
Lesson 2.5
References
• AHERN, K. G., RAJAGOPAL, I., & TAN, T. (2018). Biochemistry free for all (Version 1.3). NC - Creative Commons,.
• BERG, J. M., TYMOCZKO, J. L., GATTO, G., & STRYER, L. (2015). Biochemistry. W. H. Freeman.
https://www.academia.edu/38170707/Biochemistry_8th_ed_pdf
• BETTELHEIM, F. A., BROWN, W. H., CAMPBELL, M. K., FARRELL, S. O., & TORRES, O. (2020). Introduction to general, organic and
biochemistry (12th ed.). Cengage Learning.
• CSI. Creation Studies Institute. (n.d.). Recipe for Mice [Photograph].
https://creationstudies.org/operationsalt/spontaneous-generation.html
• LIBRETEXTS LIBRARIES. (2020, August 25). 3.1: Types of chemical compounds and their formulas. Chemistry LibreTexts.
https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/General_Chemistry/Map%3A_General_Chemistry_(Petrucci_et_al.)/03%3A_Chemical_C
ompounds/3.1%3A_Types_of_Chemical_Compounds_and_their_Formulas
• LUMEN LEARNING. (n.d.). [Photograph]. Lumen Learning.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/microbiology/chapter/spontaneous-generation/
• MCGILL UNIVERSITY. (2021). What is biochemistry? Biochemistry.
https://www.mcgill.ca/biochemistry/about-us/information/biochemistry
• MORALES-RAMOS, A., & RAMOS, J. A. (2017). General Biology 1. Phoenix Publishing House, Inc.
• SBI4U RESOURCE WEBSITE. (n.d.). Functional groups in biomolecule [Table].
http://uoitbiology12u2014.weebly.com/functional-groups.html.
• SHIRZADFAR, H. (2015). Design and evaluation of a GMR-biosensor for magnetic characterization of biological medium [Doctoral
dissertation]. ResearchGate.
• SME. Selftuition Made Easy. (2020). Difference between plant and animal cell in tabular form [Table].
https://selftution.com/difference-between-plant-and-animal-cell-cells-differentiate-cell-wall-centrosome-plastids-vacuoles/.