PLEASE ANSWER THIS QUESTION TAKING INTO PERSPECTIVE BIOCHEMISTRY THEORY A Canadi

Question

PLEASE ANSWER THIS QUESTION TAKING INTO PERSPECTIVE BIOCHEMISTRY THEORY

A Canadian space probe recently discovered a planet called Mehcoib in a galaxy far, far away. The life forms there have a similar appearance to those of earth. However, there is one huge difference: on Mehcoib living cells have heptane substituted in the place of water. The molecules that are used to build proteins in cells on Mehcoib are similar to those on earth. What major differences would exist between protein structures on Mehcoib compared to those in cells on earth? Justify your answer with an explanation that uses theory from the course content.

Explanation / Answer

Normally, cells on earth contain water inside and they have a bilayer (made of lipids) which helps to contain all organelles, ions, molecules and elements inside and do not let elements from outside to enter if they are no required. We have to take into account that water is a polar molecule, whose hydrogen bonds help to stabalize some polar aminoacids such as aspartate and serine. We must add that amino acids with acid-base properties charged in water. Since heptane is a non polar molecule, it doesn't form hydrogen bonds and acid-base properties are really poor; we can hypothetize that amino acids won't be charged and dissociated forming the zwietterion state that amino acids have in acuous medium.

If we want to talk about the proteins embebed in the membrane, it is expected that polar amino acids would be in the membrane and the non polar amino acids would be inside or outside the cell. If we talk about structure, the hydrogen and sulfide bonds, whose properties help to give a structure to proteins, wouldn't be the reason why the proteins form their structures. Maybe the structures would exist because of lipophillic interactions between amino acids promoting by heptane.

All these suggestions are based on the rule that the similar dissolves to the similar. It means, a polar medium will dissolve a polar molecule and a non polar medium will dissolve a non poler molecule. Moreover, the properties could be similar but the atom that forms these interactions could different, such as C-C bond without being a covalent bond but a weak bond like hydrogen bonds.

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