Biochemistry An Organic Chemistry Approach

Description

Describing an interesting way to teach biochemistry, especially in conjunction with organic chemistry, this textbook should find application at many schools. The first of 15 chapters is a review of the fundamentals of an organic chemistry course, but a full course may be necessary for beginners to benefit from further study. Subsequent discussion of organic reactions and mechanisms will be more meaningful for students already familiar with organic chemistry basics. Chapter 2 describes acid-base chemistry, elimination reactions, and the importance of water in chemistry. Chapter 3 discusses nucleophilic substitution; chapter 4 explains free radical reactions. Subsequent chapters discuss, respectively, dienes, conjugated systems, sigmatropic rearrangements, enols and enolate reactions, enzymes, enzyme kinetics, carboxylic acid and derivatives, lipids, aromatic chemistry, heteroaromatic chemistry, organometallic compounds, biologically relevant metals, chelating reagents, amino acids, peptides, proteins, carbohydrates and derivatives, glycosides, nucleosides, nucleotides, DNA, and RNA. Each chapter concludes with homework questions; finally, chapter 16 includes the answers to the questions. Common abbreviations are listed at the beginning of the book, and several compounds and functional groups also have line formulas or partial structures shown. The book can be used by teachers and students of chemistry, and will be useful for all chemists as a review.

–R. E. Buntrock, independent scholar