The Biochemistry Graphics Gallery
Gale Rhodes
Department of Chemistry
University of Southern Maine
Portland, Maine 04104-9300
These pages are under construction, and will grow as my 1997 fall-semester course
proceeds.
Please send comments, corrections, and suggestions to rhodes@usm.maine.edu
Introduction
In this gallery, you will find a
sampling of the great works of the biochemical arts: models of some of the complicated
molecules that bring organisms like us to life.
Each page in this gallery provides access to PDB files and prepared,
interactive views of biomolecules that you will study in your biochemistry course. Pages
are ordered by topics in Chemistry 361/3, Biochemistry I/II, at the University of Southern
Maine. But this topic list is similar to that of most introductory courses, so I hope that
many students will find them useful. In addition, all the pages are self-contained, so you
can study them in any order. First, equip your computer for this gallery, as instructed
below. Then follow your interests or needs.
USM students: you will find here many of the same views you see in class.
This means that you can review, or explore further, any molecule that we study extensively
in the course. I hope that this possibility relieves you of the need for tiresome
note-taking, and gives you the freedome to listen, think, question, and discuss the
subjects you encounter in the text and classroom.
Chemists seek connections between form and function, or in more chemical
terms, between molecular structure and chemical properties. Biochemists seek to know how
the structure of complex molecules gives them the capacity to transport, catalyze,
recognize and signal -- just a few of the crucial operations that characterize life.
Understanding function requires knowing and understanding structure. We must
see biomolecules to understand them.
Of course, these tiny entities are forever beyond the crude sight of our
eyes. We can see biomolecules only with our imagination -- we must imagine structures that
fit data from chemical analysis, thermodynamics, kinetics, spectroscopy, and x-ray
crystallography.
Here you will find the visions of chemistry's special kind of seeing.
Equip Your Computer For Touring the Gallery
To view PDB files
See Getting RasMol or Getting
SwissPdbViewer
To view RasMol scripts
See Configuring Netscape
The Biochemistry Graphics Gallery
Click on a topic to find graphics views related to
common topics in biochemistry.
(USM Biochemistry Students: You will find these same links at Biochemistry Topics.)
Topics
Cells
Water and Biomolecules
Amino Acids & Protein Sequence
Protein Structure
Enzyme Kinetics & Mechanism
Lipids & Membranes
Bioenergetics & Metabolism
Monosaccharide Catabolism
Citric-Acid Cycle
Oxidative Phosphorylation
Fatty-Acid & Amino-Acid Catabolism
Biosynthesis, Including Photosynthesis
Metabolism in Mammals
DNA & Replication
RNA & Transcription
Translation: Protein Synthesis
Regulation of Gene Expression
Recombinant DNA Technology
Back
to Biochemistry Resources