Structural biochemistry 2600-BSTBIOT-2-S1

The course provides students with theoretical and practical knowledge related to the learning of life processes at the level of chemical molecules.

Lectures (20 hours): Chemical compounds. Water - the solvent for biochemical reaction. Amino acids and proteins - the structure, properties and functions. Carbohydrates - structure and stereochemistry of monosaccharides; oligosaccharides; polisaccharides. The structure and functions of nucleic acids (DNA, RNA). Lipids - the chemical nature of the lipid types. Biological membranes - structure and functions. Membrane transport.

Lab classes (45 hours) are divided into 3 thematic blocks. Each block includes 3 classes, followed by a written test to complete the block.
The first consists of: Amino acids and proteins (separation of amino acids by paper chromatography, titration of alanine, amino acids-specific reactions; quantitative determination of proteins, precipitation of casein at the isoelectric point, fractionation of serum proteins by the desalination of ammonium sulphate, denaturation of proteins, fractionation of serum proteins by agarose gel electrophoresis, separation of hemoglobin from potassium chromate by gel filtration method on the Sephadex G-15 column.
The second block concerns carbohydrates, DNA, lipids. (qualitative analysis of sugars; isolation of cell nuclei from ethiolated wheat axes, DNA preparate from isolated nuclei, evaluation of the purity of the DNA preparation on the basis of spectrophotometric analysis, thin-layer chromatography and lipid identification).
The third block includes enzymes (enzymic kinetics, effects ofpH and temperature on aylsulphatase activity).