My email is …

• [email protected]
• A- for Anthony (i.e. Tony is short for
Anthony)
• There is a t.hickey@...(this is Tim Hickey)
• He isn’t too big a fan of mine!
 Bioenergetics structure
• Where / how/from what did life begin?
• Energy flow and ATP
• Splitting sugar to make ATP
• Making more ATP
• Photosynthesis
• Storing and releasing glucose
• Diabetes, starvation and execise

2
 % of elements in a human body
wet mass

Oxygen Carbon
Hydrogen Nitrogen
Calcium All others

The most important

compound to form!
Note O is bound with H, C, P,…
 The hydrosphere
• Earth's approximate water volume =
1.338 billion cubic kilometers
• 71% Of surface is water
• 61% of fresh water is in the Antarctic
 H2 O
• H2O has the 2nd highest specific heat capacity
(after ammonia, 4181 J/(kg·K).
• This buffers Earth's climate by buffering large
fluctuations in temperature.
• Water is a powerful solvent
• Polarity attracts positive and negative ions
 H2 O
• Forms barriers with hydrophobic
molecules (lipids  membranes)
• Allows/drives structure and shape of
molecules  proteins, base pairing of
DNA…
• Transports substrates…
Stanley Miller 1952
Miller-Urey Experiment

Created "ocean" of heated and cooled water,

with NH3 , H2, CH4 atmosphere.
Origin of Life -
7-days later (i.e. only 1 week) water became deep red How Life Started
and turbid.
Amino acids and metabolites formed…
on Earth
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=xyhZcEY5PCQ
• Life likely formed from abundant organic
molecules and elements
• Life’s chemistry may have started from
interactions on the surface of rocks and
clays
• Some compounds form that can even
promote electrochemical reactions
Harrold Morowitz

Only ~10 compounds

are required to make
all the molecules of
life, they come
from…
Evolution from
metabolism?
Amino acids

Nucleotides, Adenosine

Lipids
Amino acids

Steroids, Quinones
Vitamins

Chlorophyll,
Haemoglobin, Cytochromes
 Polymers: Key Concepts
• Life requires macromolecules
• Polymers form through the
removal of water –dehydration
• Polymers break through addition
of water –hydrolysis
• This could tell us where life
started

11
Life needs structure and Proteins
Nucleic acids

therefore polymers
(e.g. enzymes, receptors)

polymers constructed of
Polysaccharides
(Glycogen)

identical or similar building

blocks called monomers Lipids

Campbell 6.8 (ed. 10 & 11)

• 80% of cell components are polymers, 20% of a cell is

monomers and other small molecules
Types of polymers

• Lipids:
• Polysaccharides (Carbohydrate)
• Proteins
• Nucleic acids
(a) Dehydration reaction: synthesizing a polymer
1 2 3 Polymer
Short polymer Unlinked monomer
assembly
Dehydration removes
a water molecule,
(Dehydration)
forming a new bond.

1 2 3 4

Longer polymer

(b) Hydrolysis: breaking down a polymer

1 2 3 4

Polymer
Hydrolysis adds
a water molecule,
breaking a bond.
Degradation
1 2 3
(Hydrolysis)

Campbell 5.2 (ed. 10 & 11)

 1.2 Lipids
• A simple compound acetate, is an initial building block of
many compounds, including lipids.
• Lipids can grow, to form hydrophobic fatty acid (acyl)
chains
• Addition of phosphate (and often other bits) makes fatty
acids amphipathic (hydrophobic & hydrophilic parts)
• Phospholipids form membranes
• Membranes form vesicles – the first cell, or protocell?
• Acyl chains can be saturated or unsaturated
Acetate
Lipids
• Hydrophobic: water insoluble
• Functions:
– Energy storage (for mass, 6x energy of stored
sugar-e.g. glycogen)
– Structural molecules e.g. membranes
– Steroid Hormones

BIOSCI 101: Cellular and

Molecular Biology
 Lipids: Structure of a triglyceride

Ester linkage
Acyl chains

glycerol

(b) Fat molecule (triacylglycerol)

Campbell 5.9b (ed. 10 & 11)

Saturated and
Unsaturated Fatty Acids
Unsaturated Fat
The double
Saturated Fat bond also
stops rotation

BIOSCI 101: Cellular and

Molecular Biology
Lipids: Phospholipids

one fatty acid is

replaced by a
phosphate-linked
group

BIOSCI 101: Cellular and

Molecular Biology
 Lipids: The phospholipid bilayer

• The cell membrane is formed of a

phospholipid bilayer
Was this first form of replication?

No genetic information
was required

Just physical laws of

stability of vesicle size
1.3 Sugars

Dihydroxyacetone (technically not

a sugar, but tastes sweet, like glycerin)

Glucose
 Key Concepts
• Sugars form from central pathways (trioses)
• Monosaccharides are single sugars and there
are different types
• Disaccharides – Oligosaccharides form from
several mixed sugar types (e.g. sucrose)
• Polysaccharides form from many repeated units
connected by glyosidic bonds
• Polysaccharides are useful for energy storage
(starch and glycogen)
• Plants and animals use polysaccharides to form
structures (e.g. cellulose and chitin) and
specific glyosidic bonds determine flexibility

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Sugars
• Monosaccharides: 1 sugar
molecule
e.g. glucose, fructose, ribose

• Disaccharides: 2 sugar
molecules
e.g. sucrose, lactose

• Polysaccharides: many sugar

molecules linked by glycosidic
bonds
 Monosaccharides and
disaccharides
• Bonds occur by dehydration
• There are different bonds between sugars
• These change the properties of polymers

Fructose -5 sided sugar, pentose

Polysaccharides

• Functions:
• Energy storage (Fuel)
- glycogen is stored in animal tissues
e.g. liver and muscles
- starch is stored in plants

• Structural molecules e.g.

- cellulose in plants (a polymer of
glucose)
- chitin in exoskeletons of arthropods
and fungi cell walls

• Carbohydrate residues can be joined to proteins

or lipids (glycoproteins and glycolipids)
BIOSCI 101: Cellular and
Molecular Biology
Storage
polysaccharides in plants:
Starch
• Polymer of glucose
monomers

• Stored as granules
 Sugar
storage in animals:
glycogen
• Polymer of glucose
monomers (more extensively
branched than starch, why?)

• Large stores in liver and

muscle cells

BIOSCI 101: Cellular and

Campbell
Molecular5.6b
Biology(ed. 9)
 Structural polysaccharides in
plants:
cellulose

• Polymer of glucose
(not branched)

• Stored in cell wall

BIOSCI 101: Cellular and

Campbell
Molecular5.8 (ed. 9)
Biology
Structural polysaccharides in
animals:
chitin

• Polymer of glucose

• Glucose monomer has

nitrogen containing
appendage
1.4 Nucleic acids

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Nucleic Acids
(RNA and DNA)

• Functions:
– all informational processes in the cell involve DNA and RNA.
– storage of chemical energy in ATP
– intracellular signalling cAMP

BIOSCI 101: Cellular and

Molecular Biology
Components of nucleic acids

phosphodiester
bonds

Bonds form through…

Campbell 5.24 (ed. 10) & 5.23 (ed. 11)

Components of nucleic acids
Sugar-phosphate backbone
5′ end Nitrogenous bases
Pyrimidines
5′C

3′C

Nitrogenous
base Cytosine (C) Thymine (T, in DNA) Uracil (U, in RNA)

5′C Purines

1′C
Phosphate 3′C
5′C group Sugar
(pentose)
Adenine (A) Guanine (G)
3′C (b) Nucleotide
Sugars
3′ end
(a) Polynucleotide, or nucleic acid

Deoxyribose Ribose
(in DNA) (in RNA)
Campbell 5.24 (ed. 10) & 5.23 (ed. 11)
 1.5 Protein
• Proteins are formed from amino acids.
• Peptide bonds are formed through
dehydration, and broken through hydrolysis
• There are a range of amino acids (23 used
in eukaryotes, some more recently
discovered in bacteria)
• Properties determine protein structure and
function
37
The peptide bond
Amine
Carboxy group
terminus

Forms through ….?

Dehydration
Broken by hydration
 Polymers form through
dehydration!
Polymers are broken down by
hydrolysis!
 Mix and match?
phosphodiester linkages
polypeptides
monosaccharides
peptide bonds
triacylglycerides
nucleotides
glycosidic bonds
polynucleotides
amino acids
ester linkages
polysaccharides
fatty acids
42
phosphodiester linkages
polypeptides
Arrangement
monosaccharides
peptide bonds Lipid Sugar Nucleic acid Protein
triacylglycerides triacylglycerides glycosidic nucleotides polypeptides
nucleotides
glycosidic bonds bonds
polynucleotides polynucleotide
amino acids
ester linkages s
polysaccharides
fatty acids
phospholipids
RNA DNA
β-1,4 linkage
α-1,4 linkage
vessicles
ribosome
bilayer
chiton
polypeptide
hydrophobic
hydrophillic
acidic
neutral
polar

43