Key Takeaways

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Water is the universal solvent because it has many properties that allow it to be used in biological systems. • Ions are involved in ionic bonding because of the inequality that exists with regard to holding onto electrons between the cation and anion. • Covalent bonds are extremely strong and exist when two atoms roughly equally share electrons in a shared orbital. • Hydrogen bonds are weak bonds between two atoms or molecules that are slightly polar and therefore attract each other. • There are several core molecules in biochemistry, including carbohydrates, proteins, and nucleic acids. • There are different reactions that can occur in biological systems, including acidbase, hydrolysis, dehydration, and redox reactions. • Enzymes reduce the activation energy of a reaction so that the reaction can more easily occur, even though the starting and ending energies will be the same as without the enzyme.