Biochemistry: Lipids Cohort

Biochemistry: Lipids Cohort
Cassandra B Parrish, RN
000448886
June 26, 2015

A. Lipids are insoluble in water that can be used for energy storage. By definition fats are solid at room temperature and oils are liquid at room temperature, and both are triglycerides. Glycerol is the basic building block for a triglyceride, and each has 3 fatty acids attached to the glycerol. The typical fatty acid will have a chain of carbons each saturated with hydrogen; which makes this whole section non-polar. These triglycerides are a great storage for energy because the more bonds you break the more energy is produced, and with triglycerides there are many carbon and hydrogen bonds that easily broken; these are known as ester linkage. Our bodies store 3 strands of fatty acids to one base strand of glycerol, and we call this a triglyceride. Our bodies stor these triglycerides in fat cells so that we can use them for ATP at a later time. (Wolfe, G., 2000)

1. Our bodies are able to breakdown fatty acids to for ATP for other cells to use as energy, and an example of breaking these down is when people go on a low carbohydrate diet. This causes our bodies to need to breakdown these fatty acids to produce ATP, and this causes us to lose weight. First our bodies will breakdown the triglycerides into their pieces, so we end up with 1 glycerol and 3 fatty acids. Next, we break each of the fatty acids down into 2 carbon pieces, and these 2 carbon pieces for acetyl-CoA. Acetyl-CoA then can enter into the citric acid cycle which then goes through the electron transport chain, and all of this makes 12 ATP per acetyl-CoA molecule. So depending on how many carbons the fatty acid chain has will determine how much ATP can be derived. For example, the video uses a fatty acid that has eight 2-carbon chunks which means that our bodies would make 96 ATP from this one chain, and each of these have three chains so the amount of ATP per fatty acid is high. (Hudon-Miller, 2013)

B. A saturated fatty acid is saturated with hydrogen, which means that every carbon is saturated with the maximum allowable amount of hydrogen. A saturated fatty acid have a very regular zig-zag structure that causes the fatty chains to stack. At room temperature the saturated fat solids, and an example would be butter. Also, saturated fatty acids are mostly animal-based. An unsaturated fatty acid is not saturated with hydrogen. In fact, an unsaturated fatty acid has at least one double bond in the fatty tail. In unsaturated fatty acids there is no regular structure because the fatty chains are “kinked” where the double bond occurs. At room temperature unsaturated fats are liquids. Also, the unsaturated fats are mostly plant=based, and some are essential which means that our bodies cannot make these so they must be present in our (Sanders, 2013).

1. Stearic Acid (saturated fatty acid) – can be found in butter.

Lineleic Acid (unsaturated fatty acid) – can be found in vegetable oil

(Molecular Differences of Fats, 2015)

2. There are many functions that fatty acids serve in our bodies. The first of which is that our bodies use fatty acids as building blocks for phospholipids and glycolipids. Next, our bodies use fatty acids for energy. Our bodies store fatty acids as triglycerides in our fat cells, and then later we can convert these triglycerides into ATP for cell energy. A third function is that our bodies use fatty acids as messenger molecules, and they can function as intracellular messengers or as hormones. Also, these same fatty acids can be used as targeting molecules, and this when we use the fatty acids to direct proteins to their appropriate spots in the cell membranes. (James J. Neitzel, 2010)

C. Fluid Mosaic Model

(Armstrong, 2012)

D. Our bodies can make many of the fats that our bodies need; however, if we were to go on a no-fat diet there can still be consequences to us because we have essential fatty acids that must

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