BIORGANIC CHEMISTRY

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Bioorganic chemistry studies the chemistry of organic biomolecules. Particularly, Bioorganic chemistry aims to expand organic-chemical research on structures, synthesis, and kinetics in a biological direction.

Physical and chemical properties of biomolecules . Overview of the functional groups of organic molecules. Review of the mechanisms of nucleophilic substitution, electrophilic addition, condensation, elimination, and redox reactions. Review of to chirality (handedness), Stereoisomers, enantiomers, and chirality centers.

Structural properties of amino acids; Isoelectric point of amino acids; reactions of amino acids; the peptide bond: structural properties

Proteins: primary, secondary and tertiary structure. tridimensional structure and funtional properties of proteins; unfolding and denaturation of proteins.

Alpha-amino acid synthesis: Nucleophilic substitution of α-halocarboxylic acids; Gabriel synthesis; Strecker synthesis. Resolution of alpha-amino acid racemic mixtures.

Peptides synthesis; introduction to peptides syntesis; protective groups; activation of a specific carboxyl reactant; racemization of the amino acids in the resulting peptide; liquid-phase and solid-phase peptide synthesis; the Merrifield Synthesis.

Enzymes; General properties of enzymes; Activation energy and the reaction coordinate; the active site; Catalytic Mechanisms; Enzyme-Substrate complex; “lock and key” model; induced fit model; cofactors and coenzymes; kinetic aspects; transition sate theory; Michaelis-Menten equation; Effects of pH, temperature and inhibithors on Enzyme Activity; Types and Classification of in Enzymes. Examples.

Introduction to Bioinformatics. Biological Database. Bioinformatics Tools for Sequence Similarity Searching; FASTA and BLAST software. Proteomics and Bioinformatic tools: MASCOT and PEAKS

Characterization of protein structures by mass spectrometry; chemical approaches to proteomic analysis. Bottom-up and Top-down approaches. De Novo Sequencing. Proteomics application in food analysis.

Testi Consigliati:

Chimica e Propedeutica Biochimica – Bettelheim; Brown etc. – EDISES

Chimica Organica – W.H. Brown; C.S. Foote; EDISES

Computational Methods for Mass Spectrometry Proteomics – I. Eidhammer; K. Flikka; L. Martens; S.O. Mikalsen; WILEY

Proteomics in Practice: A Laboratory Manual of Proteome Analysis – R. Westermeier; T. Naven; WILEY

Appunti e Slides di Lezione