Biochemistry
Course Objective: The Students will know how the collection of thousands of inanimate molecules that constitute living organisms interact each other to maintain and perpetuate life governed solely by the physical and chemical laws as applicable to the non-living things.
Learning Outcomes (LO): Students will be able to
1. Know the chemical constituents of cells, the basic units of living organisms.
2. Explain various types of weak interactions between the biomolecules.
3. Know how the simple precursors give rise to large biomolecules such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and nucleic acids.
4. Correlate the structure-function relationship in various biomolecules
5. Know the role of biomolecules for orderly structures of the cells/tissues.
Detail contents
UNIT -1 Chemical Foundations of living systems: Molecular basis of life, Biological chemistry – Biomolecules, Bioenergetics- Entropy, Biochemical equilibria, Dissociation and association constants, pH and buffers. Interactions in biological systems: Intra and intermolecular forces, Electrostatic and hydrogen bonds, Disulphide bridges, Hydrophobic and hydrophilic molecules and forces, Water and weak interactions.
UNIT-2 Carbohydrates: Classification, Monosaccharides – structures and function; reactions of monosaccharides- mutarotation, glycoside formation, reduction and oxidation, epimerization and esterification, important monosaccharides and disaccharide; Polysaccharides –overview, structure; important polysaccharide; plant polysaccharide; Glycosaminoglycans and Glycoproteins. Lipids: Fatty acids as building blocks of most lipids, their structure and properties, classification of lipids, General structure and function of major lipid subclasses: Acylglycerols, phosphoglycerides, sphingolipids, glycosphingolipids, terpenes, steroids, Prostaglandins.
UNIT-3 Amino acids and Proteins: Amino acids as building blocks of proteins, their structure, classification and chemical properties; non- proteinogenic amino acids; Structure of peptide bond, organizational levels of protein structure; alpha- helix, beta pleated sheet, Ramachandran Plot.
UNIT-4 Nucleic Acids and Porphyrins: Structure and properties of nucleic acid bases, nucleosides and nucleotides, biologically important nucleotides, Physical and chemical properties of RNA/DNA. Hydrolysis of nucleic acids. Structure, properties and classification of porphyrins.
Laboratory course
1.Calibration of instruments and verification of Lambert-Beer’s Law
2.Preparation of buffer solutions
3. Determination of pK values of amino acids
4. Estimation of reducing sugars
5. Total carbohydrates, amino acids and proteins
6. Qualitative tests of carbohydrates
7. Quantitative analysis of lipids
8. Quantitative analysis of nucleic acids