Unit 2 (Week 5) Enzymes, Temp, pH and Specificity Flashcards
Which compound comes from willow trees that now makes up aspirin?
Salicylic acid
Modern day aspirin is a derivative acetylsalicylic acid, which is gentler on the stomach.
What do the drugs, aspirin and ibuprofen, inhibit within the body to exert their effects of pain relief and fever reduction?
They inhibit enzymes.
The enzyme in this case is cyclooxygenase which has a role in synthesizing molecules called prostaglandins whose production is blocked and in turn relieving pain and fever.
What is a process in which one or more substances are changed into other substances? (4) ways
Chemical reaction
- Molecules attaching to each other to form larger molecules
- Molecules breaking apart to from two or smaller molecules
- Rearrangements of atoms within molecules
- The transfer of electrons from one atom to another
What are enzymes and what do they do?
They are proteins that act as catalysts to speed up thousands of different reactions in cells.
What is the sum of all bodily activities and chemical reactions that occur within an organism. Also, a specific set of chemical reactions occurring at the cellular level?
Metabolism
What two general factors determine the fate of a given chemical reaction in a living cell?
Direction and Rate.
aA + bB —->
What is the ability to promote change or do work?
Energy
What is kinetic energy?
Energy associated with movement. Swinging a Bat
What is potential energy?
Energy that a substance possesses due to its structure and location. Pulling back the draw string on a bow.
T/F Electrons have potential energy based on its positive relative to other electrons and a positively charged nucleus and its amount of energy is based on its energy level.
True.
Electrons also lose energy when it drops to a lower energy level or shell.
What is the potential energy contained within atoms and the bonds between atoms?
Chemical potential energy (or simply, chemical energy)
What molecule stores a great amount of energy that is used to make ATP, an energy intermediate?
Glucose
Name (5) different types of energy important in biology and their examples.
- Light - Photons captured by pigments in chloroplasts.
- Heat - Used to maintain constant body temperature and achieved by chemical reactions.
- Mechanical - Associated with movement and muscle contraction.
- Chemical potential - Covalent bonds in organic molecules, such as glucose and ATP store large amounts of energy. When bonds break in larger molecules to form smaller molecules, the energy that is released can drive cellular processes.
- Electrical/Ion gradient - During a stage of cellular respiration called oxidative phosphorylation, an H+ gradient provides the energy to drive ATP synthesis.
What is the study of energy interconversions?
Thermodynamics
What is the first law of thermodynamics (aka the law of conservation of energy)?
Energy cannot be created or destroyed.
It can only be transferred from one place to another and can be transformed from one type to another (as when, for example, chemical energy is transformed into heat)
What is the second law of thermodynamics?
Energy transfer or transformation from one form to another increases the degree of disorder of a system, called entropy.
What is entropy?
The degree of disorder of a system.
In other words, it is the measure of the randomness of molecules in a system.
Which do you think has more entropy, a NaCl crystal at the bottom of a beaker of water or the solution that would be formed after the Na+ and Cl– ions forming the crystal have dissolved in the water?
The solution
What makes energy “unsuable?”
Entropy (S)
What is the total energy of a system termed?
Enthalpy (H)
What is the amount of a system’s energy that is available and can be used to promote change or do work?
Free energy (G)
Fun Fact: The use of G is in recognition of American physicist J. Willard Gibbs, who proposed the concept of free energy in 1878.
What is the formula that relates the three components of energy proposed by Gibbs?
H = G + TS
T = absolute temperature in kelvins (K)
To rewrite the equation to focus on free energy,
G = H - TS
What is the difference of a spontaneous or non-spontaneous process in relation to biology?
A spontaneous process or reaction is one that occurs without being driven by an input of energy.
What is the key way to evaluate if a chemical reaction is spontaneous?
Determine the free-energy change that occurs as a result of the reaction
ΔG = ΔH - TΔS
The delta indicates change, such as before and after a chemical reaction.