Research: Science and Education

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JCE Featured Molecules

William F. Coleman
Wellesley College Wellesley, MA 02481

Chemistry of Blood Type

December Featured Molecules The molecules for this month come from the paper by Rose, Palcic, and Evans (pages 18461853) on structural factors determining blood type. Included are interactive molecule files for the three molecules in Figure 1 and the two donors in Figure 2 shown on page 1847. While these molecules are of interest at a variety of levels, one could easily ask beginning students to look for familiar structural features within the molecules, such as phosphate groups and carbohydrate moieties, as well as asking them to describe the overall structures in terms of the expected geometries of particular portions of each molecule. In addition to introducing some interesting and important biochemistry, such exercises would also introduce students to structural pattern recognition, a tool that chemists exploit constantly. Also included on the Web site is the structure file for the galactosyltransferase GTB. This structure was previously reported by the authors (Patenaude, S. I.; Seto, N. O. L.; Borisova, S. N.; Szpacenko, A.; Marcus, S. L.; Palcic, M. M.; Evans, S. V. Nat. Struct. Biol. 2002, 9, 685690) and is presented without the water molecules that were determined in the crystal structure. More advanced students would find it instructive to reproduce Figure 5 on page 1850 using a tool such as the Swiss-Pdb Viewer available at http://us.expasy.org/ spdbv/ (accessed Oct 2005). Fully manipulable (Chime and Jmol) versions of these and other molecules are available at the Only@JCE Online Web site:
http://www.JCE.DivCHED.org/JCEWWW/Features/ MonthlyMolecules/2005/Dec

Blood Group O Antigen Determinant

Blood Group A Antigen Determinant

Blood Group B Antigen Determinant

UDP-GalNAc

UDP-Gal

www.JCE.DivCHED.org

Vol. 82 No. 12 December 2005

Journal of Chemical Education

1853