Proteins and lipids
The basic building blocks of proteins.
What is amino acids
What is a polar covalent bond?
A bond formed by unequal electron sharing due to differences in electronegativity.
What is a mole?
The unit that relates chemical bond energy to a biologically meaningful quantity.
The quantitative measure of hydrogen ion concentration.
what is PH
The covalent bond formed during sugar polymerization.
What is a glycosidic linkage?
The bond that links amino acids together.
What is a peptide bond?
What are weak non-covalent interactions?
The interaction that allows enzymes to bind substrates transiently but specifically.
The reason ATP hydrolysis is energetically favorable in cell
What is coupling to exergonic reactions and increased entropy?
The buffering system that stabilizes blood pH.
What is the bicarbonate buffer system?
The structural difference between starch and glycogen.
What is branching frequency?
The structural role of cholesterol in membranes.
What is modulating membrane fluidity?
What are Van der Waals interactions?
The force responsible for base stacking in DNA beyond hydrogen bonding.
What is reversibility and cumulative strength
The reason many weak bonds can outperform a single strong bond biologically.
The molecular reason extreme pH denatures proteins.
What is disruption of ionic and hydrogen bonds?
The chemical basis for cellulose’s tensile strength.
What are linear β-linked glucose chains?
What are hydrophobic interactions, hydrogen bonds, and ionic interactions?
The interactions primarily responsible for tertiary protein structure.
What is their high bond dissociation energy?
The reason covalent bonds are rarely broken during normal cellular processes.
The directionality of nucleic acid synthesis.
What is 5′ to 3′ polymerization?
The dynamic equilibrium of hydrogen ion exchange in pure water.
What is autoionization of water?
The functional group that differentiates aldoses from ketoses.
What is the carbonyl group position?
The lipid modification that anchors proteins to membranes.
What are fatty acid acylation or prenylation?
What is a hydrogen bond?
The bond whose strength depends on partial charges rather than full electron transfer.
The reason RNA is less chemically stable than DNA.
What is the 2′-hydroxyl group?
The molecular reason pH changes affect protein structure.
What is altered protonation of amino acid side chains?
The chemical explanation for why cellulose is indigestible to humans.
What are β-1,4 glycosidic linkages?