Life at Cellular Level Flashcards
Describe life processes in terms of the Laws of Thermodynamics
Energy can change from one form to another but cannot be created or destroyed.
All energy transformations will ultimately lead to an increase in entropy.
Living organisms create and maintain order but the heat produced from their chemical reactions release heat into the environment causing total entropy to increase.
Define entropy
A gauge of randomness or chaos within a closed system
What is unable to be reached due to a dynamic steady state
Equilibrium. As energy is bounced from the environment to the organism and then back to the environment
Explain why life involves processes occurring in a dynamic steady state
The entropy produced from biological reaction pathways is used in the construction of higher order compounds.
So the products from one pathway will be used in the next, making it unable to reach equilibrium with food being supplied and waste being removed in a continuous state.
Define metabolism
The chemical processes in a living organism which allow food to be used for tissue growth
Catabolic reactions…
are spontaneous as they occur with a -ve deltaG
Anabolic reactions…
are not spontaneous as they occur with a +ve deltaG
How are catabolic and anabolic reactions interdependant
Any energy obtained from catabolic reactions are used up in anabolic reactions to produce more highly ordered compounds
What is ATP/ADP
A free energy carrier which couples anabolic and catabolic reactions using phosphate group transfers
What is NADP/NAD and FAD
Electron carriers used in redox reactions
What does ATP stand for
Adenosine triphosphate
What does ADP stand for
Adenosine diphosphate
What does NADP stand for
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate
What does NAD stand for
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide
What does FAD stand for
Flavin adenine dinucleotide
