BO1010: Introduction to Life Sciences

Course Content:

•Relevance of Biological Principles to Engineering undergraduates

•Water and its special properties: relevance to life
•Building blocks of life: Bio-molecules and their structure-function aspects
•Cell structure and organelles, cell membrane, cellular transport and signaling
• How does a cell sustain life? Cell metabolism and its regulation; Cell energetic: harvesting
chemical & solar energy
•Classical and Molecular genetics – Principles; Applications of advances in molecular genetics
•Introduction to the molecular basis of human diseases
•Biotechnology

Text Book:
Biology – by N.A. Campbell and J.B. Reece, 2005. VII edition (International edition),
Pearson- Benjamin-Cummings Publications, San Francisco.
Reference Book:
Molecular Biology of The Cell -by B. Alberts, 5th edition, Garland Science, New
York.
Evaluation:
90% Exam + 10 % Attendance
 Power of Biotechnology

Tobacco plant with Pig with green fluorescent protein

Fish with green fluorescent protein firefly glow gene (GFP) gene
(GFP) gene (Glowing Fish)

Completion of Human Genome Project

-Organ and organism cloning

-Gene Therapy
-Therapeutic protein production: Vaccine, HGH, Insulin etc
-Synthesis of small molecule for use as drugs
-Environment clean up
-Agricultural applications: Pest resistance, fortified food,
Herbicide resistance, Salinity resistance
Golden Rice
Interfaces: Engineering & Life Sciences

Bioinformatics & Systems biology

Fermentation technology
Nano-biotechnology
Genomics & Proteomics
Biomedical Engineering
Biomaterials
Bio-mechanics etc..
 Systems Biology and Bioinformatics
• A system is a combination of components that function together
• Systems biology constructs models for the dynamic behavior of
whole biological systems
• The systems approach poses questions such as:
– How does a drug for blood pressure affect other organs?
• How does increasing CO2 alter the biosphere? A system is a
combination of components that function together
• Bioinformatics
Genomics and Proteomics

Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for
understanding biological data.

Genomics is a discipline in genetics that applies recombinant DNA, DNA

sequencing methods, and bioinformatics to sequence, assemble, and analyze the function and
structure of genomes.
Experimental molecular biology
• Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins, particularly their structures, functions
and interactions for given physiological process
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 Nano-biotechnology
 The intersection of nanotechnology and biology.

-Peptide nanosheet
-Fluorescent polymers
-DNA nanotubes
-Silver nanoparticles
-Fullerenes: Nanoscale
Electronics
-Bone tissue engineering
-Precise drug target
Biomedical Engineering

Biomedical Imaging

CT scan (computed tomography)

MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging)
X-ray

Machines engineered for

Biotech application:
EM (Electron Microscopy)
AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy)
NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance)
X-ray diffraction
 Everyday biology

Example: Why does curd form?

How is curd made?

-Take a vessel and pour milk into it

(milk is the medium)
- Warm it, say upto 37oC
- Add some old curd to it
(old curd is the inoculum)
- Close it, set it aside in a warm place
(the mixture is the culture/broth)
- Curd is formed in a few hours
 Nutrient Cow Buffalo Human

Water, g 88.0 84.0 87.5

Energy, kcal 61.0 97.0 70.0
Protein, g 3.2 3.7 1.0
Fat, g 3.4 6.9 4.4
Lactose, g 4.7 5.2 6.9
Minerals, g 0.72 0.79 0.20

http://babcock.cals.wisc.edu/downloads/de/19.en.pdf

Acid formation, and consequent protein aggregation

Where does the acid come from?

From some among the thousands of reactions that occur inside the lactic acid
bacteria (Lactococcus lactis)
 Lactic acid

www.jccc.net/~pdecell/cellresp/glycolysis.html
What kind of a molecule is lactic acid?

C3H6O3

2-hydroxy propanoic acid

Lactic acid belongs to a class of biomolecules called

Carbohydrates

General formula: (CH2O)n Usually n > 3

Now, let us look at the next part: curd forms due to protein aggregation

What is aggregation?

Reverse question:

What happens at a molecular level when a substance

dissolves in water?
 THE MOLECULE THAT SUPPORTS ALL OF LIFE

●Water is the biological medium on Earth

●All living organisms require water more than any other substance

●Most cells are surrounded by water, and cells themselves are about 70–
95% water

●The abundance of water is the main reason the Earth is habitable

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings

 THE POLARITY OF WATER MOLECULES RESULTS IN
HYDROGEN BONDING

●The water molecule is a polar molecule: The opposite ends have

opposite charges

●Polarity allows water molecules to form hydrogen bonds with each other

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings

Fig. 3-2

δ–
Hydrogen
bond
δ+
H

δ–
O
δ+ H
δ– δ+
δ–
δ+
 FOUR EMERGENT PROPERTIES OF WATER CONTRIBUTE
TO EARTH’S FITNESS FOR LIFE

Four of water’s properties that facilitate an environment for life are:

● Cohesive behavior

● Ability to moderate temperature

● Expansion upon freezing

● Versatility as a solvent

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings

 COHESION AND ADHESION

●Collectively, hydrogen bonds hold water molecules together, a

phenomenon called cohesion

How these properties of water support the life on earth?

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings

 Adhesion

Water-
conducting
cells

Direction Cohesion
of water
150 µm
movement
● Surface tension is a measure of how hard it is to break the surface of a
liquid

Surface tension is related to cohesion

●

The high surface tension of water is also essential for processes such as water and
blood transport in plants and animals respectively.
Allows the cytoplasm to hold-up the cell membrane
Highly essential for maintaining structure of the cell and organelle.
 MODERATION OF TEMPERATURE
Water absorbs heat from warmer air and releases stored heat to cooler air
●

●Water can absorb or release a large amount of heat with only a slight change
in its own temperature

●The specific heat of a substance is the amount of heat that must be

absorbed or lost for 1 g of that substance to change its temperature by 1ºC

The water has very high specific heat

●

Water resists changing its temperature because of its high specific heat
●

Water: 4.184 Joules /g OC

Body temperature of human: 37OC  0.6
Iron: 0.450 : 9 times lesser
High fever: 39.4 to 41.1 OC
Gold: 0-129: 30 times
Copper: 0.385: 11 times

Why water has high specific heat?

How its relevant for supporting the life on earth?

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 Expansion upon freezing
INSULATION OF BODIES OF WATER BY FLOATING ICE

●Ice floats in liquid water because hydrogen bonds in ice are more
“ordered,” making ice less dense

●Water reaches its greatest density at 4°C

How this property of water supports the life on earth?

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings

 Fig. 3-6a

Hydrogen
bond
Ice Liquid water
Hydrogen bonds are stable Hydrogen bonds break and re-form
 Hydrogen
bond
Liquid water
Ice Hydrogen bonds are stable Hydrogen bonds break and re-
form

Ice: crystalline structure and floating barrier

 THE SOLVENT OF LIFE
● solution

● solvent

● solute

●An aqueous solution is one in which water is the solvent

●Water is a versatile solvent due to its polarity, which allows it to form

hydrogen bonds easily

●When an ionic compound is dissolved in water, each ion is surrounded

by a sphere of water molecules called a hydration shell

Copyright © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Benjamin Cummings

 –
–
– +
+ –
–
+ Cl– Cl–
+ +
–
Na+
– –
+ –
– +
+ Na+
–
(a) Lysozyme molecule in a (b) Lysozyme molecule (purple) in an aqueous (c) Ionic and polar regions
nonaqueous environment environment on the protein’s surface
attract water molecules.

Water can also dissolve compounds made of ionic polar molecules

●

●Even large polar molecules such as proteins can dissolve in water if they
have ionic and polar regions
 Now, let us look at aggregation – aggregation happens when molecules
fall out of solution, and are attracted to each other.

Which protein aggregates?

Casein of milk, mainly

Why casein (milk protein) fall out of solution during curd formation?

From a molecular view-point, why does a protein aggregate?

From a molecular view-point, what is a protein?

 Carbon: The Backbone of Life
• Cells are 70–95% water, the rest is mostly carbon-based compounds
• Carbon can form large, complex, and diverse molecules with ease.
• Proteins, DNA, carbohydrates, and other molecules found only in living matter are all
composed of carbon compounds
• Organic chemistry is the study of compounds containing carbon
• Organic compounds range from simple molecules to colossal ones
• Most organic compounds contain hydrogen atoms as well as carbon atoms
Why carbon atoms can form diverse molecules ?

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 How vast molecular diversity arise from the carbon
molecules?

• Carbon chains form the skeletons of most organic molecules

• Carbon chains vary in length and shape

Ethane Propane 1-Butene 2-Butene

(a) Length (c) Double bonds

Butane 2-Methylpropane Cyclohexane Benzene

(commonly called isobutane)
(b) Branching (d) Rings
Fig. 4-5
 Molecular Structural Ball-and-Stick Space-Filling
Name Formula Formula Model Model
(a) Methane

(b) Ethane

(c) Ethene
(ethylene)

How molecular formula is different from structural formula?