Honors Biology Flashback

What are the 4 organic nutrient molecules?

The four organic nutrient molecules are carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids.

What elements make up each molecule?

Carbohydrates are made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; proteins consist of amino acids, containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sometimes sulfur; lipids are composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; nucleic acids contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus.

How are each molecule used in the body?

Carbohydrates are the main source of quick energy, proteins build muscles and tissues, lipids is used for long term energy storage and provide insulation, and nucleic acids store and transmit genetic information.

What are the polymers and monomers of each?

Carbohydrates consist of monosaccharides like glucose, proteins are made of amino acids, lipids are primarily composed of glycerol and fatty acids, and nucleic acids are formed from nucleotides.

What kingdom of organisms provides each of these molecules?

Plants provide carbohydrates, animals provide proteins, both plants and animals provide lipids, and all living organisms contain nucleic acids.

Enzymes - In what class of organic molecules are they placed and why?

Enzymes are classified as proteins because they are made up of amino acids

What are enzymes function?

Enzymes function as biological catalysts that accelerate chemical reactions in living organisms.

What factors affect the action of enzymes?

Factors that affect enzyme activity is temperature, pH, substrate concentration and enzyme concentration.

What are the 4 biogeochemical cycles?

The water cycle, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, and phosphorus cycle.

How does each cycle help in making/breaking of organic molecules?

The water cycle helps transport nutrients and molecules. The carbon cycle is used to build carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. The nitrogen cycle is needed to make proteins and DNA. The phosphorus cycle is used to make DNA, RNA, and ATP.

How are the causes of climate change shown?

Climate change causes more droughts and floods (water cycle). Burning fossil fuels adds extra CO2 to global warming (carbon cycle). Fertilizers add excess nitrogen to ecosystems (nitrogen cycle). No gas phase in the phosphorus builds up in water systems (phosphorus cycle)

What happens to a lake if a limiting factor (fertilizer) is added in great amounts?

Algae grows fast, oxygen levels drop, fish and other organisms die.

What are food webs?

Food webs are diagrams showing who eats who inside of an ecosystem.

What do they show at each level?

Producers are plants, primary consumers eat the plants first, secondary consumers eat the primary consumers, tertiary consumers are top predators that eat secondary consumers, decomposers can be bacteria and fungi.

What would happen if one of the organisms were removed from the web?

The population can become unbalanced, some organisms may overpopulate while others may shrink, others may go extinct.

What are energy pyramids and what is their significance?

Energy pyramids show how energy decreases at high trophic levels, only about 10% of energy moves to the next level.

What is covalent bonding and how is it used to make lipids from glycerol and fatty acid?

Covalent bonding is a bond where atoms share electrons. Glycerol bonds with fatty acids using covalent bonds. This happens through dehydration synthesis.

What is hydrolysis? What is dehydration synthesis?

Hydrolysis breaks large molecules apart and uses water. Dehydration synthesis builds large molecules and releases water.

What molecule is used in one and released in the other?

H2O is used in hydrolysis and H2O is released in dehydration synthesis.

What is the difference between saturated and unsaturated fats in terms of chemistry, health, and origin?

Saturated fats in chemistry have no double bonds, and bent chains vs unsaturated fats that have double bonds and straight chains. Saturated fats in health are less health vs unsaturated fats are healthier. The origin if saturated fats are from animal products (butter, meat) vs the origin of unsaturated fats come from plants and fish.

What is ionic bonding and how does it explain the creation of ions?

Ionic bonding is when electrons are transferred, not shared. When an atom loses electrons, it becomes positively charged. When an atom gains electrons, it becomes negatively charged.

What is pH?

pH measures how acidic or basic a solution is, scaled from 0-14. 0-6 is acidic, 7 is neutral, 8-14 is base.

How are acids and bases made?

Acids are made when a substance releases hydrogen ions in water. Bases are made when a substance releases hydroxide ions in water.

What are the differences between acids and bases?

The more hydrogen ions the stronger the acids. The more hydroxide ions, the stronger the base.

What is a polar molecule?

A polar molecule is a molecule that has unevenly shared electrons.

How does a polar molecule explain cohesion, surface tension, and transpiration?

Cohesion is when water molecules sticking to each other. Because water is polar, the positive end of one molecule attracts the negative end of another. Surface tension is a strong “skin” on the surface of water. Caused by strong cohesion between water molecules at the surface. Transpiration is water moving up a plant from roots to leaves. Cohesion allows water molecules to pull each other upward.

What are the three types of cellular transport?

Passive transport, active transport, and bulk transport. No energy, using energy, moving large materials.

When is each type of transport used to transport stuff into and out of cells?

Passive transport is used when substances move without using energy from high concentration to low concentration. Active transport is used when substances when substances move against the concentration gradient from low to high concentration using energy. Bulk transport is used when moving large particles or large amounts of material.

What is the difference between passive and active transport?

Passive transport is used without using energy, active transport is used while using energy.

What is the role of transport proteins?

The role of transport proteins is to help substances move across the cell membrane.

What are three types of passive transport and how are they different?

Diffusion, facilitated diffusion, osmosis are the three types of passive transport. Diffusion is the movement of small molecules, facilitated diffusion uses proteins, and osmosis is the movement of water.

When are each of these types of bulk transport - exocytosis, endocytosis, pinocytosis, and phagocytosis?

Endocytosis is used for molecules going into the cell, pinocytosis is liquids and phagocytosis is solids. Exocytosis is used for molecules going out of the cell.

During osmosis, when is a solution surrounding a cell hypotonic, hypertonic, and isotonic?

Hypotonic is water entering the cell, hypertonic is when water leaves the cell, isotonic is when water moves equally among the cell. W

When is plasmolysis, cytolysis, turgor pressure, and dynamic equilibrium seen?

Plasmolysis is when the cell shrinks, cytolysis is when the animal cell bursts, turgor pressure is seen in a healthy plant, dynamic equilibrium is balanced.

Cell membrane - how does its structure affect its function?

The cell membrane controls what enters and leaves the cell. Its structure allows it to protect the cell and let needed materials pass.

Why is the cell membrane considered a bilayer?

It is made of two layers of phospholipids (a phospholipid is a special type of lipid that makes up the cell membrane.

What makes a cell membrane selectively permeable?

It’s selectively permeable because only certain substance can pass

cell walls - what is their function in transport?

Cells walls provide support and protection, prevent too much water from entering and bursting the cell, and allow water an d gases to pass through easily.

Which organisms have cell walls and what are they made of?

Plants - cellulose, fungi - chitin, bacteria - peptidoglycan

central vacuoles - what is their function in transport?

central vacuoles store water, nutrients, and waste help move water in and out of the cell, maintain turgor pressure.

Which organisms have central vacuoles? Function in photosynthesis?

Plant cells - store store needed for photosynthesis, help keep leaves upright to gain sunlight?

Contractile vacuoles - what is their function in transport?

Contractile vacuoles collect and pump excess water out of the cell, and help control water balance.

Which organisms have contractile vacuoles? Why are they necessary for life/

Freshwater protists like paramecium - they are necessary because they prevent the cell from bursting due to too much water entering from osmosis.