The Solvent of Life
Monomers and Polymers
5-syllable words
Enzymes
Bonds
100
This term describes that the electrons on a water molecule are not shared evenly, resulting in slight positive and negative charges.
What is polar/polarity?
100
The process by which water is added to a polymer, breaking it down into its component monomers.
What is hydrolysis?
100
When proteins lose their native conformation due to changes in their environment.
What is denaturation?
100
Reactions that absorb energy from their surroundings.
What are endergonic reactions?
100
The weak interaction between water molecules.
What is a hydrogen bond?
200
This characteristic of water is what allows animals like water striders and basilisk lizards to walk and run across water.
What is surface tension?
200
Linking amino acids together will produce a protein, which we also call this.
What is a polypeptide/polypeptide chain?
200
The process of adding a phosphate group to a molecule.
What is phosphorylation?
200
Enzymes operate by lowering this, the energy required for the bonds to break in a reactant/substrate.
What is activation energy?
200
The covalent bond between two monosaccharides.
What is a glycosidic linkage?
300
This property contributes to capillary action, the phenomenon by which plants are able to move water through their xylem against gravity.
What is cohesion?
300
They can be either saturated or unsaturated depending on how the carbons are bonded to one another.
What are fatty acid chains?
300
Glucose, fructose, ribose, galactose, deoxyribose.
What are monosaccharides?
300
With the "lock and key" model, the two models that are used to describe specificity of enzyme-substrate bonding.
What is induced fit?
300
Breaking bonds between these functional groups is how energy is released during ATP hydrolysis.
What are phosphate groups?
400
This characteristic of water is extremely high, which helps it regulate temperatures on Earth
What is specific heat?
400
Composed of hundreds to thousands of glucose molecules linked together in animals.
What is glycogen?
400
The metabolic processes that break down complex molecules.
What is catabolism?
400
These would bind to an enzyme and change its shape or conformation, making it unable to bind with substrate and non-functional.
What are noncompetitive inhibitors?
400
The bond between two side chains on a polypeptide that contain sulfur, helping make a protein's tertiary structure.
What is a disulfide bridge?
500
The name of a mixture when water is the solvent.
What is an aqueous solution?
500
The term for the two strands of a DNA double helix, referring to the fact that the nitrogenous bases of both strands hydrogen bond to each other in a specific pattern.
What is complementary?
500
The term for how reactions or processes will proceed if there is a net decrease in free energy.
What is spontaneously?
500
Might be atoms of zinc, iron, or copper helping an enzyme perform its reactions.
What are cofactors?
500
The bond between two nucleotides in a nucleic acid.
What is a phosphodiester linkage?