Protein

Biochemistry aims to explain biological form and function in chemical terms. The major
biological phenomena have been revealed by purifying individual chemical component, such as a
protein, from a living organism and its structural and chemical characterization.

Proteins are long polymers of amino acids, constitute one of the largest fractions of cells.
Some proteins have catalytic activity and function as enzymes; others serve as structural ele-
ments, signal receptors, or transporters that carry specific substances into or out of cells. The
nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, are polymers of nucleotides. They store and transmit genetic
information, and some RNA molecules have structural and catalytic roles in molecular com-
plexes.

The polysaccharides are polymers of simple sugars such as glucose. They have two major
functions:

As energy-yielding fuel stores and as extracellular structural elements with specific binding
sites for particular proteins. Shorter polymers of sugars (oligosaccharides) attached to proteins or
lipids at the cell surface serve as specific cellular signals.

The lipids, greasy or oily hydrocarbon derivatives, serve as structural components of

membranes, energy-rich fuel stores, pigments, and intracellular signals. In proteins, nucleotides,
polysaccharides, and lipids, the number of monomeric subunits is very large- molecular weights
in the range of 5,000 to more than l million for proteins, up to several billion for nucleic acids,
and in the millions for polysaccharides such as starch.

The covalent bonds and functional groups of a biomolecule are, of course, central to its
function, but so also is the arrangement of the constituent atoms of a molecule in three-
dimensional space, its stereochemistry. A carbon-containing compound commonly exists as
stereoisomers, molecules with the same chemical bonds but different stereochemistry that is,
different configuration and the fixed spatial arrangement of atoms. Interactions between bio-
molecules are invariably stereospecific, requiring specific stereochemistry in the interacting
molecules. A nearly universal set of several hundred small molecules is found in living cells; the
inter-conversions of these molecules in the central metabolic pathways have been conserved in
evolution.

The central issue in bioenergetics (the study of energy transformations in living systems) is
the means by which energy from fuel metabolism or light capture is coupled to energy- requiring
reactions of the cell. All biological macromolecules are much less thermodynamically stable than
their monomeric subunits, yet they are kinetically stable: their uncatalyzed breakdown occurs so
slowly that, on a time scale that matters for the organism, these molecules are stable.
 Virtually every chemical reaction in a cell occurs at a significant rate only because of the
presence of enzymes—biocatalysts that, like all other catalysts, greatly enhance the rate of
specific chemical reactions without being consumed up in the process. Cellular catalysts are,
with a few exceptions, proteins. A further contribution to catalysis occurs when two or more
reactants bind to the enzyme’s surface close to each other and with stereo- specific orientations
that favor the reaction. This increases by orders of magnitude the probability of productive
collisions between reactants.

The thousands of enzyme-catalyzed chemical reactions in cells are functionally organized

into many sequences of consecutive reactions, called pathways, in which the product of one
reaction becomes the reactant in the next. Some pathways degrade organic nutrients into simple
end products in order to extract chemical energy and convert it into a form useful to the cell;
together these degradative, free -energy-yielding reactions are designated as catabolism.

Other pathways start with small precursor molecules and convert them to progressively
larger and more complex molecules, including proteins and nucleic acids. Such synthetic
pathways, which invariably require the input of energy, are collectively designated as anabolism.
The overall network of enzyme- catalyzed pathways constitutes cellular metabolism. ATP is the
major connecting link (the shared intermediate) between the catabolic and anabolic components
of this network.

All cells are bounded by a plasma membrane; have a cytosol containing metabolites,
coenzymes, inorganic ions and enzymes; and have a set of genes contained within a nucleoid
(prokaryotes) or nucleus (eukaryotes). Bacterial cells contain cytosol, a nucleoid and plasmids.
Eukaryotic cells have a nucleus and are multicompartmented, segregating certain processes in
specific organelles, which can be separated.
 Reaction Paper on
Biomolecules
(Protein)

Submitted by:

Nicole A. Verzosa

BS Biology I-A

Submitted to:

Mrs. Gloria Molina

Instructor
May 17, 2019