Biology Unit One 2
Terms
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- Polar Molucule
- A molecule, such as water, with opposite charges on opposite sides.
- Cohesion
- A substance's affinity to itself.
- Adhesion
- The clinging of one substance to another.
- Surface Tension
- A measure of how difficult it is to stretch or break the surface of a liquid.
- Specific Heat
- The amount of heat that must be absorbed or lost for 1 g of that substance to change its temperature by 1ºC.
- Hydrophilic
- Water loving
- Hydrophobic
- Water hating
- Evaporative Cooling
- The property of a liquid whereby the surface becomes cooler during evaporation, owing to a loss of highly kinetic molecules to the gaseous state.
- Buffer
- A substance that consists of acid and base forms in solution and that minimizes changes in pH when extraneous acids or bases are added to the solution.
- Organic Chemistry
- The study of carbon compounds.
- Hydrocarbon
- An organic molecule consisting only of carbon and hydrogen.
- Isomer
- One of several organic compounds with the same molecular formula but different structures and different properties.
- Structural Isomer
-
An isomer that differs in the covalent arrangements of their atoms.
C
-C-C-C-C- vs. -C-C-C- - Geometric Isomer
- An isomer that differs in its spatial arrangement.
- Enantiomer
- Molecules that are mirror images of each other.
- Functional Group
- A specific configuration of atoms commonly attached to the carbon skeletons of organic molecules and usually involved in chemical reactions.
- Hydroxyl Group
- A functional group consisting of a hydrogen atom joined to an oxygen atom by a polar covalent bond. Molecules possessing this group are soluble in water and are called alcohols.
- Alcohol
- An organic molecule containing hydroxyl groups.
- Carbonyl Group
- A functional group present in aldehydes and ketones, consisting of a carbon atom double-bonded to an oxygen atom
- Aldehyde
- An organic molecule with a carbonyl group located at the end of the carbon skeleton.
- Ketone
- An organic compound with a carbonyl group somewhere other than the end of the molecule.
- Carboxyl Group
- A functional group present in organic acids, consisting of a single carbon atom double-bonded to an oxygen atom and also bonded to a hydroxyl group.
- Carboxylic Acid
- A compound containing a carboxyl group.
- Amino Group
- A functional gourp that consists of a naitrogen atom bounded to two hydrogen atoms; can act as a base in solution, accepting a hydrogen ion and acquiring a charge o +1.
- Amine
- An organic compound with an amino group.
- Sulfhydryl group
- A functional group consisting of a sulfur atom bonded to an atom of hydrogen.
- Thiol
- An organic molecule containing a sulfhydryl group.
- Phosphate Group
- A functional group important in energy transfer.
- Polymer
- A large molecule consisting of many identical or similar monomers linked together
- Monomer
- The subunit that serves as the building block of a polymer.
- Condensation Reaction
- A reaction in which two molecules become voalently bonded to each other through the loss of a small molecule, usually water (dehydration reaction)
- Dehydration reaction
- A chemical reaction in which two molecules covalently bond to anoe another with the removal of a water molecule.
- Hydrolysis
- A chemical process that lyses or splits molecules by the addition of water; essential to digestion.
- Polysaccharide
- A polymer of over a thousand monosaccharides, formed by condensation synthesis.
- Fatty Acid
- A long carbon chain carboxylic acid. Fatty Acids vary in length and in the number and location of double bonds.
- Saturated Fatty Acid
- A fatty acid in which all carbons in the hydrocarbon tail are connected by single bonds, thus maximizing the number of hyrogen atoms that can attach to the carbon skeleton.
- Unsaturated Fatty Acid
- A fatty acid possessing one or more double bonds between the carbons in the hydrocarbon tail. Such bonding reduces the number of hyrogen atoms attached to the carbon skeleton.
- Steroid
- A class of lipids characterized by a carbon skeleton consisting of four rings with various functional groups attached.
- Cholesterol
- A steroid that forms an essential component of animal cell membranes and acts as a precursor molecule for the synthesis of other biologically important steroids.
- Peptide Bond
- A covalent bond formed by means of a dehydration rection joining the amino acids by their carboxyl groups.
- Primary structure
- The level of protein structure referring to the specific sequence of amino acids.
- Secondary Structure
- The localized, repetitive coiling or folding of the polypeptide backbone of a protein due to hydrogen bond formation between peptide linkages.
- Tertiary Structure
- Irregular contortions of a protein molecule due to interactions of side chains involved in hydrophobic interactions, ionic bonds, hydrogen bonds, and disulfide bridges.
- Quaternary Sturcture
- The particular shape of a complex, aggregate portein, defined by the characteristic three-dimensionalarrangement of its constituent subunits, each a polypeptide.
- Denaturation
- For proteins a process in which a protein unravels and loses its native confomation, thereby becoming biologically inaction. For DNA, the separation of the two strands of the double helix. Denaturation occurs under extreme conditions of pH, salt concentration, and temperature.
- Nucleic Acid
- A polymer consisting of many nucleotide monomers; serves as a blueprint for porteins and, through the actions of proteins, for all cellular activities. The two types are DNA and RNA.
- Purine
- A large nitrogenous base fused from a six to a five membered ring.
- Pyrimidine
- A nitrogenous base with a six-membered ring of carbon and nitrogen atoms.
- Metabolism
- The totality of an organism's chemical processes, consisting of catabolic and anabolic pathways.
- Catabolic pathways
- A metabolic pathway that releases energy by breaking down complex molecules into simpler compounds.
- Anabolic Pathways
- Processes that consume energy to build complicated molecules from simpler ones.
- Thermodynamics
- The study of energy transformations that occur in a collection of matter.
- 1st Law of Thermodynamics
- Energy can be transferred and transformed, but it can be neither created nor destroyed.
- 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
- Every energy transfer or transformation increases the entropy of the universe.
- Free Energy
-
A quantity of energy that interrelates entropy and the system's total energy.
G= dH-TdS - Energy Coupling
- The use of an exergonic process to drive an endergonic one.
- Catalyst
- A chemical agen that changes the rate of a reaction without being consumed by the reaction.
- Competitive Inhibitor
- A substance that reduces the activity of an enzyme by entering the active site in place of the substrate whoe structure it mimcs.
- Noncompetitive Inhibitior
- A substance that reduces the activity of an enzyme by binding to a location remote from the active site, changing its conformation so that it no longer binds to the substrate.
- Feedback Inhibition
- A method of metabolic control in which the end-product of a metabolic pathway acts as an inhimbitor of an enzyme within that pathway.
- Entropy
- A quantitative measure of disorder or randomness.