Ch. 5 Vocab Flashcards
a lipid consisting of three fatty acids linked to one glycerol molecule; also called a triacylglycerol or triglyceride.
Fat
a polymer (polynucleotide) consisting of many nucleotide monomers; serves as a blueprint for proteins and, through the actions of proteins, for all cellular activities. The two types are DNA and RNA.
Nucleic Acid
a structural polysaccharide of plant cell walls, consisting of glucose monomers joined by β glycosidic linkage.
Cellulose
subunit that serves as the building block of a polymer.
Monomer
the use of computers, software, and mathematical models to process and integrate biological information from large data sets.
Bioinformatics
level of protein structure referring to the specific linear sequence of amino acids.
Primary Structure
the sugar component of RNA nucleotides.
Ribose
the sugar component of DNA nucleotides, having one fewer hydroxyl group than ribose, the sugar component of RNA nucleotides.
Deoxyribose
a carboxylic acid with a long carbon chain.
Fatty Acid
a fatty acid that has one or more double bonds between carbons in the hydrocarbon tail. Such bonding reduces the number of hydrogen atoms attached to the carbon skeleton.
Unsaturated Fatty Acid
a fatty acid in which all carbons in the hydrocarbon tail are connected by single bonds, thus maximizing the number of hydrogen atoms that are attached to the carbon skeleton.
Saturated Fatty Acid
a technique used to study the three-dimensional structure of molecules. It depends on the diffraction of an X-ray beam by the individual atoms of a crystallized molecule.
X-ray Crystallography
A type of nucleic acid consisting of a polynucleotide made up of nucleotide monomers with a ribose sugar and the nitrogenous bases adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and uracil (U); usually single-stranded; functions in protein synthesis, in gene regulation and as the genome of some viruses.
Ribonucleic Acid (RNA)
a nucleic acid molecule, usually a double-stranded helix, in which each polynucleotide strand consists of nucleotide monomers with a deoxyribose sugar and the nitrogenous bases adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T); capable of being replicated and determining the inherited structure of a cell’s proteins.
Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)
the building block of a nucleic acid, consisting of a five-carbon sugar covalently bonded to a nitrogenous base and one to three phosphate groups.
Nucleotide
a strong covalent bond formed when the sulfur of one cysteine monomer nods to the sulfur of another cysteine monomer.
Disulfide Bridge
a biologically functional molecule consisting of one or more polypeptides folded and coiled into a specific three-dimensional structure.
Protein
a chemical reaction that breaks bonds between two molecules by the addition of water; functions in disassembly of polymers to monomers.
Hydrolysis
a recessively inherited human blood disorder in which a single nucleotide change in the a-globin gene causes hemoglobin to aggregate, changing red blood cell shape and causing multiple symptoms in afflicted individuals.
Sickle-cell Disease
the particular shape of a complex, aggregate protein, defined by the characteristic of its constituent subunits, each a polypeptide.
Quaternary Structure
one of two types of nitrogenous bases found in nucleotides, characterized by a six-membered ring. Cytosine (C), thymine (T), and Uracil ((U) are pyrimidines.
Pyrimidine
one of two types of nitrogenous bases found in nucleotides, characterized by a six-membered ring fused to a five-membered ring. Adenine (A) and guanine (G), are ____.
Purines
any group of large biological molecules, including fats, phospholipids, and steroids, that mix poorly, if at all, with water.
Lipid