Question
Question: What are biomolecules?...
What are biomolecules?
Solution
Hint: A biomolecule is a substance particle that naturally occurs in living life forms. Biomolecules consist fundamentally of hydrogen and carbon, along with nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, and sulfur.
Complete step-by-step answer:
A biomolecule is any natural particle that is created by a living organism, including enormous polymeric molecules, for example, proteins, polysaccharides, and nucleic acids just as small molecules, for example, primary metabolites, secondary metabolites, and natural products.
There are four main classes of biomolecules which are given below:
- Carbohydrates: These are composed of elements like Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen. Commonly these molecules are known as sugars.
For example, Sugars found in milk (Lactose), Glucose, table sugar (sucrose). These are major sources of energy in our body. - Proteins: Like carbohydrates, proteins are composed of smaller units. The monomer that makes up proteins is called Amino acids. There are around 20 amino acids like Glycine, Leucine, Isoleucine, Valine, etc.
- Lipids: The term lipid refers to a wide variety of biomolecules including oils, fats, waxes, and steroid hormones. They are hydrophobic ( they don’t dissolve in water ).
- Nucleic acids: All the information needed to control and build cells is stored in these molecules. There are two main types of nucleic acids:
i) DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid
ii) RNA - Ribonucleic acid
Note: The possibility to make a mistake is that polymer and biomolecule are two different terms. Both of these are made up of monomer units but polymers are made from many repeating units of monomer.