生物化学 Biochemistry: A Textbook For Medical Students (2nd Edition)

Name: 生物化学 Biochemistry: A Textbook for Medical Students
Edition: 2nd
Editors: Zhao Baochang 赵宝昌; Guan Yifi 关一夫
Subject: Biochemistry
Language: English
Publisher: 科学出版社

Brief Introduction

Life is one of the motional modes of matters. Thousands of different lifeless and lives on the Earth are made from the simple elements and compounds. The remarkable common properties of living organisms distinguishing from nonliving materials are the capacity for precise selfrenewal (metabolism), and self-replication and self-assembly (expression and transmission of genetic information), although they maintain and perpetuate themselves to conform to all the physical and chemical laws that govern the nonliving universe. Biochemistry is the chemistry of life, the aim is to describe and explain, in molecular terms, all chemical processes in living cells.

The second edition of Biochemistry: A Textbook for Medical Students includes the following new features. All chapters are revised with the inclusion of up- dated contents and corresponding new figures or new tables. A new chapter on ” – omics” is added to reflect the growing significance and versatility of these new techniques. All 23 chapters are rearranged into three parts. Part I discusses the structures and functions of some major biomolecules including proteins, nucleic acids, vitamins, enzymes and glycoconjugates. Part II deals with metabolisms of carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, nucleotides, the related biological oxidation, minerals, and the integration and regulation of metabolism. In this part, metabolic characteristics of the blood and liver are also described individually. Part ill describes the flow of the genetic information and its regulation, the major DNA technology and some important omics. Besides, oncogens, tumor suppressors and growth factors, and signaling are also described. Since some contents have been studied in the course of Cellular Biology, the chapter Biomemhranes has been eliminated from this textbook. In the second edition, several demonstrative boxes have been added to introduce briefly the fundamental knowledge about human diseases and to emphasize the significance between biochemistry and medicine.

Chapter 1 Structures and Functions of Proteins
Chapter 2 Structures and Functions of Nucleic
Chapter 3 Vitamins
Chapter 4 Enzymes
Chapter 5 Glycoconjugates
Chapter 6 Biological Oxidation
Chapter 7 Carbohydrate Metabolism
Chapter 8 Lipid Metabolism
Chapter 9 Protein Catabolism
Chapter 10 Nucleotide Metabolism
Chapter 11 Blood Biochemistry
Chapter 12 Liver Biochemistry
Chapter 13 Mineral Biochemistry
Chapter 14 Integration and Regulation of Metabolism
Chapter 15 DNA Biosynthesis
Chapter 16 DNA Damage and Repair
Chapter 17 RNA Biosynthesis and Processing
Chapter 18 Protein Biosynthesis,Modification and Targeting
Chapter 19 Regulation of Gene Expression
Chapter 20 DNA Technologies
Chapter 21 Signal Transduction
Chapter 22 Oncogenes, Tumor Suppressor Genes and Growth Factors
Chapter 23 Genomics, Proteomics, and Other Omics
The Major References
Index
Glossary

Excerpts

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Certain small molecular RNAs have catalytic activities. This type of small RNAs is called ribozyme or catalytic RNA. The first ribozyme was discovered in the early 1982 by Thomas R. Cech when he studied the splicing mechanism of the group I rRNA intron from the ciliated protozoan Tetrahymena thermophila. He found that the rRNA spliced itself accurately without any protein enzymes from Tetrahymena. in 1989, Thomas R. Cech and Sidney Altman won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their “discovery of catalytic properties of RNA”. As we know, there are five classes of ribozymes. Three of these RNA species carry out self-processing reactions while the others, such as ribonuclease P (RNase P) and rRNA are true catalysts that act on separate substrates. The best characterized ribozymes are the self-splicing group I introns, RNase P, and the hammerhead ribozyme . The substrates of these ribozymes are often RNA molecules, and even a part of the ribozyme itself The hammerhead ribozyme requires a minimal sequence with a hammerhead-shaped structure for its catalytic function. The hammerhead-shaped structure includes three sterns, I – 3 loops, a GU sequence nearby the self-cleavage site, and some conservative nucle-otides for its catalytic function (Figure 2-22).Discovery of RNA catalysis has greatly altered our concepts of biochemical evolution. First, it is now recognized that RNA can serve as both a catalyst and a carrier of genetic information. This has raised the possibility that the earliest living organisms were based entirely on RN A, and that DNA and proteins evolved later.
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