Astro 2037 Spring 07, Lecture 25

Living cells are carbon-based

Chemical composition of the human
body by weight
• This composition is fairly typical of all
living matter on Earth
• Most of the oxygen in living cells is
actually part of water
• The molecules that account for a cell’s
structure and function owe their remarkable
qualities to Carbon. Therefore, we refer to
life on Earth as being Carbon-based.
Explanations:
• The large amount of hydrogen and oxygen in living organisms follows
naturally from the high percentage of water that all life contains, consistent
with abundant water at the Earth’s surface
• Carbon becomes a critical element for life because it has a remarkable ability
to form bonds with other carbon atoms, creating chains and rings that can
incorporate other elements

Carbon dioxide

Hydrogen cyanide
(HCN)

• Carbon is a particularly versatile chemical element because it can bond to

from one to four atoms at a time
Diagrams represent several relatively simple hydrocarbons –
organic molecules consisting of a carbon skeletons attached to
hydrogen atoms
• Complex molecules centered on carbon can form the structures of cells, store
energy, promote chemical reactions, and contain the information needed for an
organism to reproduce
• Nitrogen and oxygen atoms each have the property of being able to share more
than one electron with a carbon atom, allowing nitrogen and oxygen to form
double bonds with carbon that are strong but breakable
• The possibility of such chemical bonds, together with the ability of carbon atoms
to link with one another in many ways, allows carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen to
form an extraordinary variety of stable molecules

• Nitrogen has the additional ability to form a relatively inert, highly volatile gas
that aids in cycling this element between organisms and their environment
• Oxygen atoms can easily combine with other atoms and molecules in chemical
compounds that release energy as they form
• Carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen, due their chemical properties,
have become dominant elements for forming life!
• Due to the kinship of life elements similar to stars, life could be a common
phenomena in the universe!
 Could life elsewhere be based on something else?

• The most likely element that can possibly replace carbon is silicon, which
can also four chemical bonds with other elements

• However, silicon has at least two strikes against it as a basis for life

(1) The bonds formed by silicon are significantly weaker than equivalent bonds
formed by carbon. As a result, complex molecule bonds formed by silicon are
more fragile than those based on carbon, probably too fragile to form the structural
components of living cells

(2) Complex silicon-based molecules cannot exist long in water, which is also
generally thought to be necessary to life
(3) Unlike carbon, silicon does not normally form double bonds; instead, it forms
only single bonds. This limits the range of chemical reactions that silicon-based
molecules can engage in as well as the variety of molecular structures that can
form
 Biologically Important Compounds
Most life forms consist of a small number of types of rather simple molecules
called monomers, which can join together in a repetitive sequence to become
components of larger, more complex molecules called polymers

Glycogen, the carbohydrate that animals use most to store energy, is a polymer–a
long, branched chain. Each glucose molecule (monomer) contains 22 atoms
 The most important monomers are the amino acids
• Amino acids form proteins, nucleotides, and sugars
• Nucleotides form the cross-links in the DNA molecules that carry the
genetic code
• Sugars provide large structural and energy-storing molecules
• Amino acids have left-handed and right-handed form

• All of the amino-acid monomers found in life on Earth are of the left-
handed, never right-handed, variety
• This distinctive property of life on Earth might arise by chance!
Biochemistry and Origins of Life on Earth
• 20 amino acids among ~ 70 available
are commonly used in living organisms to
make proteins
• They all share identical components
(shaded portions)
• Polymers of amino acids (proteins) can
fold into elaborate, highly complex but
extremely specific and reproducible
shapes.
• An average protein molecule consists of
a few hundred amino-acid monomers
• Most living organisms make and use
fewer than 10,000 types of protein
molecules
• Life shows an extraordinary selectivity
in the kind of molecule that it uses
The most basic property of life: The capability to reproduce

• A certain kind of long, skinny polymer

called DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)
governs the process of reproduction
• DNA molecules store genetic
information that tells the next generation
of organisms how to carry out metabolism,
to grow, and to reproduce
• Each DNA molecule contains two
strands, the famed double helix of
molecular biology
• The monomers that bond together to
form each strand of DNA are called
nucleotides
The four monomers that form the cross links in DNA
molecules have the collective name of nucleotides

• All four have the same sugar and

phosphate portions
• The nucleotides differ in the base that
bonds to the sugars and phosphates
• Living organisms on earth choose
four nitrogenous bases: adenine (A),
guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine
(T)
• The sugar and phosphate portions of the
monomers connect to one another to form
the “railing”
• The bases appear inside these two
strands, bases are connected to each other
to form “steps”, A pairs only with T, G
only with C
Cells:

nuclei

DNA