Music about to study biochemistry

As it seems obvious, Dr. Ahern made a music about the exams of Biochemistry, and about the hard work that is to study for them. He got inspiration in the song The Yellow Rose of Texas. And by the way... for all that are at this moment studying Biochemistry... Good luck! ;)

Download the music here

The Mellow Woes of Testing

The term is almost at an end
Ten weeks since it began
I worried how my grade was ‘cause
I did not have a plan
The first exam went not so well
I got a fifty three
‘Twas just about the average score
In Biochemistry

I buckled down the second time
Did not sow my wild oats
I downloaded the videos
And took a ton of notes
I learned about free energy
And Delta Gee Naught Prime
My score increased by seven points
A C-plus grade was mine

I sang the songs, I memorized
I played the mp3s
I learned the citrate cycle
And I counted ATPs
I had electron transport down
And all of complex vee
I gasped when I saw my exam
It was a ninety three

So heading to the final stretch
I crammed my memory
And came to class on sunny days
For quizzing comedy
I packed a card with info and
My brain almost burned out
‘Twas much to my delight I
Got the ‘A’ I’d dreamed about

So here’s the moral of the song
It doesn’t pay to stew
If scores are not quite what you want
And you don’t have a clue
The answers get into your head
When you know what to do
Watch videos, read highlights and
Review, review, review
.

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Metabolic map about apoptosis induced by DNA damage

Biochemical t-shirt (1)

Famous quote (21)

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” - Albert Einstein

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Cellular respiration - an overview

Today I will dedicate a post to some general considerations about cellular respiration. This process occurs in the mitochondria More precisely, in the mitochondrial inner membrane. To put it in a simple way, it is an oxidation-reduction process that involves the transport of electrons, from NADH and FADH2 to oxygen. In fact, it is mainly because of this process that we need to breathe oxygen. During the process, the O2 molecules are reduced to H2O, which is the main reason for us to breathe out water vapor. Thus, in fact most of our pulmonary respiration is not more than a consequence of our cellular respiration!

But back to the cellular respiration process... The electrons are received and transported over four complexes, designated I, II, III and IV. These complexes are not more than sets of electron transport proteins, many of which with cofactors specialized in the transport of electrons, such as iron-sulfur centers, heme and flavoproteins. A key element in this process is the presence of transition metals (iron and copper, for example) because, due to the fact that they can oscillate between two oxidation states, they are able to temporarily capture or donate electrons.

For electrons to pass from complex I or II to complex III, there is a lipophilic molecule that will carry them, which is called ubiquinone. For the electrons to move from complex III to IV there is an intermembrane space protein that carries them, designated cytochrome c.

As the electrons move along the complexes, in some of them ther will be a coupled process, which is the proton (H +) pumping from the matrix to the intermembranar space. That means, it will be created a H+ gradient, designated electromotive force , which will accumulate enough energy to drive ATP synthesis via a process called oxidative phosphorylation. The intervening in this process is the mitochondrial ATP synthase.

In future posts I will devote some attention to a detailled explanation of how cellular respiration works...