Three Major Themes

Carbohydrates is a group of carbons that consist of sugar, starch, and fiber which is contained of carbons, hydrogen, and oxygen. Carbohydrates is a component that provides energy through food calories such as; fruits, grains, and pasta. Another word that is used for sugars is saccharide. There are three types of saccharides, mono which contains one sugar molecule, di which contains two, and tri which contains three sugar molecules.  One of the most important sugars that is in monosaccharide is glucose which is created by photosynthesis. Another saccharide that creates many of sugars that are combined into a chain are polysaccharides. This is also known as starches what you see in foods such as pasta and potatoes as mentioned above.

Amino Acids is the building block of proteins. Amino acids forms together to form peptides (2 or more amino acid bond together) and polypeptides bonds. There are 20 amino acids found in protein. Taught in organic chemistry and biochemistry there are L and D forms. L forms active proteins of eukaryotes and D forms active proteins of prokaryotes. There was a type of hormone that was mentioned from Dr. Prescott in biochemistry it was a one small peptides hormones such as oxytocin. This hormone induces labor and controls contraction and also stimulates flow of milk after labor.

DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is stored as code made up of  Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine. DNA is attached to a sugar and phosphate molecule that is called nucleotide. DNA is a double helix formed by base pairs (AGCT) attached to a sugar-phosphate backbone. We also discussed in class how the process works the way DNA is translated and is transcribed into RNA.

These three major themes that I thought were important to discuss. These themes were taught in my previous science classes and now again in relating to biochemistry.

The connection between glucose entering the body and energy created by the body

(Structural Formula of Glucose) 

Glucose enters the cell by a process of many reactions called glycolysis. Glucose enters the body and a phosphate attaches to the glucose molecule. This is a way for the cell to acquire energy because there is loss of energy converting ATP into ADP when the phosphate attaches to the glucose molecule. From this process the glucose will convert to fructose and another phosphate will then attach and cause loss of energy.

The two molecules that are involved in the process to create ATP when a phosphate is lost is called dihydroxyacetone and glyceraldehydes. These two molecules are split separately and rearranged into isomers, created into two of the same molecules. For  every lose of a phosphate,  two molecules of ATP are created.

What knowledge have you connected with the past knowledge?

The past knowledge I have connected with biochemistry is the DNA replication. I was taught about this replication in Biology and genetics which made it easier to connect more with it in my biochemistry class. DNA replication is a process that occurs in all living organisms and copies their DNA in a basis of biological inheritance. The DNA replication starts as a double stranded DNA structure that are coiled together and form a double helix. The structure that forms into a nucleus during DNA replication is called a replication fork, it is created by helicases which breaks down the hydrogen bonds holding the DNA strands together. DNA replication always starts from 5prime to 3prime direction. There are differences in the DNA replication in Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes. Prokaryotes is a well known mechanism such as DNA polymerases while Eukaryotes are more complex and still elucidating components of mechanism. In Prokaryotes polymerase are exonucleases while in Eukaryotes not all polymerases are exonucleases. There are one origin of replication in Prokaryotes while there are several origins in Eukaryotes. In prokaryotes there are 1000 to 2000 residues long in Okazaki fragments while in Eukaryotes there is only 150 to 200.

Find an interesting biochemistry website and put its link in this entry, and describe what is found there.

http://www.biology.arizona.edu/biochemistry/biochemistry.html.

This website shows many things in the life of chemistry. It gives you a little background on what is chemistry and talks about molecules where you can learn about their structure and properties, PH levels, acids and bases where you learn the solvent of water. It also shows you energy reactions such as, enzymes, and catalysis where it tells you the key principles of them both. Metabolism is another energy reaction where it shows you the basic and fundamental concepts. Photosynthesis studies the conversion of light energy into different forms of chemical energy.

What knowledge have you connected witht past knowledge?

I have connected many things in biochemistry with my past knowledge. Having the knowledge from science classes I realized that all these courses have something in common that binds them all together. For insistence, saturated and unsaturated fats. Not only in our science courses we hear about these fatty acids but everywhere we go such as, in food we eat, diets, and supermarkets. Saturated fat consists of triglycerides and had all single bonds, it does not have any double bonds. It has a chemical makeup in which the carbon atoms are saturated with hydrogen atoms. Unsaturated fat is a fatty acid in which there is at least one double bond within the fatty acid chain. This fatty acid is made from animal products which lowers LDL cholesterol. Also, there is a hydrogenation process that adds hydrogen's to make double bonds single, making unsaturated fatty acids to saturated.

Find a protein using PDB explorer-describe your protein, including what disease state or other real-world application is has

Amyloid- beta Precusor is a protein that is in Alzheimer disease. It is a large membrane protein that normally plays an essential role in neural growth and repair. It is found on the surface of the cell throughout the human body. However, this form of protein can destroy nerve cells, leading to the loss of thought and memory in Alzheimer's disease. APP plays a role as an intact membrane protein. The intact protein is a receptor protein that sends signals it also binds to many outside cells. There are four pieces of APP, three of  the domains that extend on the outside of the cell and a peptide that crosses the membrane.

What is the biochemistry, and how does it differ from the fields of gentics, biology, chemistry, and molecular biology?

Biochemistry is the study of the structure, composition, and chemical reactions of substances in living systems.

Biochemistry differs from:

• Genetics is the study of heredity of inherited variation that has no type of chemical reactions.

• Biology is also study of living organisms but the difference is that it divides into specialized fields

• Chemistry is the science of matter the difference between them is that biochemistry has to do with the body while chemistry deals with molecules. 
• Molecular biology is study of biology at a molecular level the difference between them is that biochemistry is based more on molecules of life rather then molecular biology is based more on DNA, RNA and protein synthesis.