Reading Guide: Pratt and Cornely, Chapter 1
1. List three major themes of biochemistry.
2. From memory, draw the general structure of these functional groups: amine, alcohol, ether,
aldehyde, ketone, carboxylic acid, thilo, ester, amide, imine, phosphate ester, diphosphate ester.
3. What are the four major types of biomolecules? Which type may exist in both straight chain
and cyclic forms? Which types contain nitrogen? Which class is a broad collection of molecules
of diverse structure?
4. What are three types of biological polymers? List the type of linkage associated with each.
5. Define monomer and residue.
6. Define enthalpy and entropy. Write an equation that relates enthalpy and entropy to the change
in free energy.
7. In terms of free energy, when is a reaction spontaneous? What does it mean when a process
has a change in free energy equal to zero?
8. How can a nonspontaneous reaction be made to occur in a cell?
9. How can you recognize that a carbon atom has been oxidized? How can you recognize that a
carbon atom has been reduced? Which of these processes is a spontaneous process?
10. List differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.