B3: BIOLOGICAL MOLECULES

 Th bodies of all living things are made of many different kinds of chemicals.
 Most of our bodies are made up of water.
 We also contain carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
 These substances are what our cells are made of. Each of them is vital for life.
 In most organisms, almost 80% of the body is made up of water.
 We have seen that cytoplasm is a solution of many different substances in water.
 The spaces between our cells are also filled with watery liquid.
 Inside every living organism, chemical reactions are going on all the time.
 These reactions are called metabolism.
 Metabolic reactions can only take place if the chemicals which are reacting are dissolved in
water.
 Water is an important solvent. This is one reason why water is so important for living organisms.
If their cells dry out, the reactions stop, and the organism dies.
 Water is also needed for other reasons. For example, plasma, the liquid part of the blood,
contains a lot of water, so that substances like glucose can dissolve in it.
 These dissolved substances are transported around the body.
 Water is also needed to dissolve enzymes and nutrients in the alimentary canal, so that digestion
can take place.
 Carbohydrates include starches and sugars.
 Their molecules contain three kinds of atoms – carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O).
 A carbohydrate molecule has about twice as many hydrogen atoms as carbon or oxygen atoms.
 The simplest kind of carbohydrates are simple sugars or monosaccharides.
 Glucose is a simple sugar.
 A glucose molecule is made of six carbon atoms joined in a ring, with the hydrogen and oxygen
atoms pointing out from and into the ring.
 A glucose molecule contains six carbon atoms, twelve hydrogen atoms and xix oxygen atoms.
 Its molecular formula can be written C6H12O6.
 Although they contain many atoms, simple sugar molecules are very small. They are soluble in
water, and they taste sweet.
 If two simple sugar molecules join together, a larger molecule called a complex sugar
disaccharide is made.
 Two examples of complex sugar are sucrose (the sugar we use in hot drinks, or on breakfast
cereal, for example) and maltose (malt sugar). Like simple sugars, they are soluble in water and
taste sweet.
 If many sugars are joined together, a very large molecule called polysaccharide is made.
 Some polysaccharide molecules contain thousands of sugar molecules joined together in a long
chain.
 The cellulose of a plant cell walls is a polysaccharide and so is starch, which is often found inside
plant cells.
 Animal cells often contain a polysaccharide called glycogen.
 Most polysaccharides are insoluble, and they do not taste sweet.
 Carbohydrates are needed for energy.
 One gram of carbohydrate releases 17kJ (kilojoules) of energy.
 The carbohydrate that is normally used in respiration is glucose.
 This is also a form in which carbohydrates are transported around an animal’s body.
 Human blood plasma contains dissolved glucose, which is transported to all the cells.
 The cells then use glucose to release the energy that they need to carry out the processes of life.
 Plants also use glucose in respiration, to provide them with energy.
 However, they do not transport glucose around their bodies. Instead, they transport sucrose.
 The cells change the sucrose to glucose when they need to use it.
 Plants store carbohydrates as starch. It is quick and easy to change glucose into starch, or starch
into glucose.
 Some plants store large quantities of starch in their seeds or tubers, and we use these as food.
 Animals do not store starch. Instead, they store carbohydrates in the form of polysaccharide
glycogen.
 However, only small quantities of glycogen can be stored.
 It is mostly stored in the cells in the liver and the muscles.
 The polysaccharide cellulose is used to make criss – crossing fibres from which plant cell walls
are constructed.
 Cellulose fibres are very strong, so the cell walls help to maintain the shape of the plant cell.
 We can test for the presence of sugar by adding benedict’s solution to a food and heating it.
 If the food contains reducing sugar (such as glucose or maltose), then the brick – red colour will
be produced.
 The mixture changed gradually from blue, though green, yellow, and orange, and finally to brick
red.
 If there is no reducing sugar, then the benedict’s solution remains blue.
 The test for starch is easier, as it does not involve heating.
 You simply add iodine solution to a sample of the food.
 If there is starch present, a blue-black colour is obtained.
 If there is no starch, the iodine solution remains orange – brown.
 Fats are also known as lipids.
 Like carbohydrates, fats contain only three kinds of atom – carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
 A fat molecule is made of four smaller molecules joined together.
 One of these is glycerol. Attached to the glycerol are three long molecules called fatty acids.
 Fats are insoluble in water. Fats that are liquid at room temperature are called oils.
 Like carbohydrates, fats and oils can be used in a cell to release energy.
 S gram of fat gives about 39 kJ of energy.
 This is more than twice as much energy as that released by a gram of carbohydrate.
 However, most cells use carbohydrates first when they need energy and only use fats when all
the available carbohydrates have been used.
 The extra energy that fat contains makes it very useful for storing energy.
 In mammals, some cells, particularly the ones underneath the skin, become filled with large
drops of fats or oils.
 These stores can be used to release energy when needed.
 The layer of fat helps to keep heat inside the body – that is, it insulates the body.
 Many plants store oils in their seeds – for example, peanut, coconut, and castor oil. The oils
provide a good store of energy for germination.
 There are several different tests for fats. one of the best is the ethanol emulsion test.
 Firstly, you chop the food and shake it up with ethanol. Although fats will not dissolve in water,
they do dissolve in ethanol.
 Next, you pour the ethanol into water. If there is any fat in the food, then the fat – ethanol
mixture breaks up into millions of tiny droplets when it is mixed with the water.
 This mixture is called emulsion. It looks white and opaque, like milk.
 If there is no fat in the food, the mixture of water and ethanol remains transparent.
 Protein molecules contain some kinds of atoms which carbohydrates and fats do not.
 As well as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, they also contain nitrogen (N) and small amounts of sulfur
(S).
 Like polysaccharide, protein molecules are made of long chains of smaller molecules joined end
to end. These smaller molecules are called amino acids.
 There are about 20 different kinds of amino acids. Any of these 20 can be joined together in any
order to make a protein molecule.
 Each protein is made of molecules with amino acids in a precise order.
 Even a small difference in the order of amino acids makes a different protein, so there are
millions of different proteins which could be made.
 Some proteins are soluble in water; an example is haemoglobin, the red pigment in blood.
 Others are insoluble in water, for example, keratin.
 Hair and fingernails are made of keratin.
 Unlike carbohydrates, proteins are not normally used to provide energy.
 Many of the proteins in the food you eat are used for making new cells.
 New cells are needed for growing and for repairing damaged parts of the body.
 In particular, cell membranes and cytoplasm contain a lot of protein.
 Enzymes are also proteins.
 The long chains of amino acids from which protein molecules are formed can curl up into
different shapes.
 The way in which the chain curls up, and therefore the three – dimensional shape of a protein
molecule, is determined by the sequence of amino acids in the chain.
 Different sequences of amino acids result in different shapes of protein molecules.
 For most protein molecules, their shape directly affects their function.
 The shape of an enzyme molecules determines which reactions it can catalyse.
 The test for proteins is called the biuret test.
 This involves mixing the food in water, and then adding dilute copper sulfate solution.
 Then dilute potassium hydroxide solution is gently added.
 A purple colour indicates that protein is present. If there is no protein, the mixture stays blue.
 carbohydrates fats Proteins
Elements they contain C, H, O C, H, O C, H, O, N
Smaller molecules of Simple sugars Fatty acids and Amino acids
which they are made (monosaccharides) glycerol
Solubility in water Sugars are soluble; Insoluble Some are soluble and
disaccharides, some are insoluble
polysaccharide are
insoluble.
Why organisms need Easily available energy Storage of energy Making cells,
them (17kJ/g) (39kJ/g); insulation, enzymes,
making cell haemoglobin; also
membranes used for energy;
hormones.

 Many chemical reactions can be speeded up by substances called catalysts.

 A catalyst alters the rate of a chemical reaction, without being changed itself.
 Within any living organism, chemical reactions take place all the time.
 They are sometimes called metabolic reactions.
 Almost every metabolic reaction is controlled by catalysts called enzymes.
 Enzymes are proteins.
 Without enzymes, the reaction would take place very slowly, or reactions are great enough
to sustain life.
 Catalyst: a substance that increases the rate of chemical reaction and its not changed by the
reaction.
 Enzymes: proteins that function as biological catalysts.
 For example, inside the alimentary canal, large molecules are broken down into smaller ones
in the process of digestion.
 These reactions are speeded up by enzymes.
 A different enzyme is needed for each kind of food. For example, starch is digested to sugar
maltose by an enzyme called amylase.
 Protein is digested to amino acids by protease.
 These enzymes are also found in plants – for example, in germinating seeds, where they
digest the food stores for the growing seedlings.
 Many seeds contain stores of starch.
 As the seeds soaks up water, the amylase is activated and breaks down the starch to
maltose.
 The maltose is soluble, and it is transported to the embryo in the seed.
 The embryo uses it to provide energy for growth, and also to provide glucose molecules that
can be strung together to make cellulose molecules, for the cell walls of the new cells
produced as it grows.
 Another enzyme which speeds up the breakdown of a substance is catalase.
 Catalase works inside the cells of most living organisms – including both animals and plants –
for example, in the liver cells or potato cells.
 It breaks down hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen.
  This is necessary because hydrogen peroxide is produced by many of the chemical reactions
that take place inside cells.
 Hydrogen peroxide is a very dangerous substance, and it must be broken down immediately.
 Not all enzymes help to break things down. Many enzymes help to make large molecules
from small ones.
 One example of this kind of enzyme is starch phosphorylase, which builds starch molecules
from glucose molecules inside plant cells.
 Enzymes are named according to the reaction that they catalyse. For example, enzymes
which catalyse the breakdown of carbohydrates are called carbohydrases.
 If they break down proteins, they are proteases.
 If they breakdown fats (lipids), they are lipases.
 Sometimes, they are given more specific names than this.
 For example, we have seen that the carbohydrase that breaks down starch is called amylase.
 The carbohydrase that breaks down maltose is called maltase.
 The carbohydrase that breaks down sucrose is called sucrase.
 A chemical reaction always involves one substance changing into another.
 In an enzyme – controlled reaction, the substance which is present at the beginning of the
reaction is called substrate.
 The substance which is made by the reaction is called the product.
 For example, the substrate for the enzyme amylase is starch, and the product is maltose.
 Starch ------------> maltose
 Every enzyme molecule has a dent in it is called active site.
 This has a shape that is complementary to the shape of its substrate.
 The substrate fits into the active site of the enzyme, forming an enzyme – substrate complex.
 When the substrate molecule is in the active site, the enzyme makes it react – for example,
by breaking apart.
 All enzymes have active sites.
 Each enzyme has an active site that exactly fits its substrate. This means that each enzyme
can only act on a particular kind of substrate.
 Amylase, for example, can break down starch molecules but cannot break down protein
molecules, because they do not fit into its active site.
 This is often known as the lock and key mechanism.
 Properties of enzymes:
1- All enzymes are proteins, this may seem rather odd because some enzymes actually digest
proteins.
2- Enzymes are made inactive by high temperatures. This is because they are protein molecules,
which are damaged by heat.
3- Enzymes work best at a particular temperature enzyme which are found in the human body
usually work best at about 37 °C.
4- Enzymes work best at a particular pH pH is a measure of how acid or alkaline a solution is. Some
enzymes work best in acid conditions (low pH). Others work best in neutral or alkaline conditions
(high pH).
5- Enzymes are catalysts they are not changed in the chemical reactions which they control. They
can be used over and over again, so a small amount of enzymes can change a lot of substrate
into product.
6- Enzymes are specific, this means that each kind of enzyme will only catalyse one kind of
chemical reaction.
 Most chemical reactions happen faster at higher temperatures. This is because the molecules
have more kinetic energy – they are moving around faster, so they bump into each other more
frequently.
 This means that at higher temperatures an enzyme is likely to bump into its substrate more often
than at lower temperatures.
 They will also hit each other with more energy, so the reaction is more likely to take place.
 However, enzymes are damaged by high temperatures.
 For most humans’ enzymes, this begins to happen from about 40°C upwards.
 As the temperature increases beyond this, the enzyme molecules start to lose their shape.
 The active site is no longer fits perfectly with the substrate. The enzyme is said to be denatured.
It can no longer catalyse the reaction.
 The temperature at which an enzyme works fastest is called its optimum temperature.
 Different enzymes have different optimum temperatures.
 For example, enzymes from the human digestive system generally have an optimum of around
37 C.
 Enzymes from plants often have optimums around 28° to 30°.
 Enzymes from bacteria that live in hot springs may have optimums as high as 75C.
 The pH solution affects the shape of an enzyme.
 Most enzymes and their correct shape at pH of about 7 – that is, neutral.
 If the pH becomes very acidic or very alkaline, then they are denatured. This means that the
active site is no longer fits the substrate, so the enzyme can no longer catalyse its reaction.