3 Matching Annotations
- Apr 2024
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bio.libretexts.org bio.libretexts.org
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The water (or other equivalent reaction partner) is an important contributor to the energy calculus. In ATP, for instance, simply "breaking" a phosphoanhydride bond - say with imaginary molecular tweezers - by pulling off a phosphate would not be energetically favorable. We must therefore be careful not to say that breaking bonds in ATP is energetically favorable or that it "releases energy". Rather, we should be more specific, noting that the hydrolysis of the bond is energetically favorable.
An interesting example of how situational and context driven chemical and biological mechanisms can be. Isn't it unique and strange that the favorable mechanism here is strictly hydrolysis, which requires water, the most plentiful molecule in living things?
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A phospholipid is a molecule with two fatty acids and a modified phosphate group attached to a glycerol backbone.
I also recognize that the unsaturated carbons forming a double bond are the reason for the bent shape in the second fatty acid since the bond angle changes between H3C-CH3 and H2C=CH2
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Stearic acid is a common saturated fatty acid; oleic acid and linolenic acid are common unsaturated fatty acids. Attribution: Marc T. Facciotti (own work)
I guess "saturated" in this case is regarding the carbon atoms' saturation with bonds to hydrogen since the unsaturated fatty acids have double bonds and therefore less than the maximum electron domains for carbon
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