Biomolecules

Copper is associated as an activator with tyrosinase. It is widely distributed in plants, animals and man. It is also known as polyphenol oxidase or catecholase. It oxidizes tyrosine to melanin in mammals and causes the cut surfaces of many fruits and vegetable to darken.

Minor elements are those which are required by plants in very small amounts. These elements have a significant role in enzyme activities (zinc activates carboxylases, carbonic anhydrase and various dehydrogenases).

Water attracting molecules are called hydrophilic. Water repelling molecules are called hydrophobic. Amino acids simultaneously carry positive and negative charges. Such substances are called zwitter ions. Lipids are compounds of C, H, O but the ratio of H and O is more than 2 : 1, that is, the ratio of oxygen is lesser than carbohydrates. Lipids are insoluble in water but soluble in non-polar solvents such as benzene, chloroform etc.

The most common lipid found in a cell is phospholipid. It contains a hydrophilic (polar) head and a hydrophobic (non- polar tail).

All those sugars which have free aldehyde or ketone group are called reducing sugars. These are able to reduce cupric ions (Cu⁺²) into cuprous ions (Cu⁺). Sucrose, starch are non-reducing sugars.

Nitrogen fixation involves conversion of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia. It is done with the help of nitrogenase enzyme which occurs inside thick walled heterocysts of the blue green algae. These provide suitable anaerobic environment for nitrogenase activity even in aerobic conditions.

Glycoproteins are proteins that contain sugars like carbohydrates as prosthetic group. In most glycoproteins, the linkage is between asparagine and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. Some glycoproteins are immunoglobulins, membrane proteins and muscle proteins. Lipoproteins are protein complexed with lipids like triglycerides, phospholipids etc. Nucleoproteins are proteins associated with nucleic acids and chromoproteins are proteins associated with pigments e.g., cytochrome, phytochrome.

Feedback inhibition or end product inhibition is the inhibition of the activity of an enzyme catalysing some early reactions of the series by the end product of the metabolic pathway.

For example, a substrate A is converted into a product F through B, C, D and E intermediate products. As the concentration of end product F increases, it diffuses to allosteric enzyme (E1 ) causing a reduced synthesis of the product B which in turn lowers the rate of enzymatic reactions in rest of the pathway.

ATP is a nucleotide as it is composed of adenine, ribose sugar and phosphoric acid. There are two additional phosphate groups attached to the phosphate group of AMP. The last two phosphate molecules are connected by high energy bonds.

All molecules require certain amount of energy for activation (to overcome energy barrier) before they can react. This energy is called activation energy. This energy is recovered when products are formed. The essence of an enzyme is its ability to speed up (catalyze) a reaction by making or breaking specific covalent bonds (bonds in which atoms are held together by sharing of electrons). Enzymes act by somehow lowering the temperature at which a given bond is unstable i.e., they speed up a reaction by lowering the activation energy. It is the magnitude of the activation energy which determines how fast the reaction will proceed.

Enzymes are absent in viruses because they are unable to transmit their nucleic acid from one host cell to another.