Monomers & Polymers

in this video, we're going to introduce the two terms monomers and polymers, and so monomers with the mono prefix are going to be single individual building blocks that can be repetitive Lee linked together to form polymers. And so the root mono is a route that actually means one or singular, whereas the root polly in polymers is going to mean many. And so polymers are defined as long chains of many monomers that air linked together. Now the monomers, those individual building blocks that are used to build polymers will actually vary depending on the type of bio molecule polymer that they're building. And so it's important to also note that carbohydrates, proteins and nucleic acids they all use consistent monomers to form their polymers. However, lipids are a little bit different because they do not use a consistent monomer to build polymers. And we'll get to talk Maura about these lipids later in our course. But for now, let's focus on the monomers and polymers. So if we take a look at our example image down below, we can focus on the monomers and polymers. And so actually I'm gonna direct you to this image over here on the right hand side, which shows you these individual separate building blocks over here. And because these are single individual building blocks that are separate from one another, we refer to these as monomers. And then, of course, if we were to link all of these monomers together into a long chain of many monomers linked, uh, then we have ourselves a polymer. So this whole thing is a polymer, and these individual pieces that we see over here are the monomers. Now, as we mentioned up above in our text monomers air going to vary depending on the type of bio molecule polymer. And really, it's only the carbohydrates, proteins and nucleic acids that use consistent monomer. So those are the ones that we're gonna focus on over here in this key and lipids, they don't use consistent monomer, so we'll talk about the lipids later. But if we take a look at this key over here on the left hand side, noticed that for carbohydrates, all of these little gray monomer building blocks that we see over here are really going to be mono sacha rides and moving forward in our course, we're gonna represent those building blocks those mono sack rides as these bluish hexagons. Now for proteins. On the other hand, these gray thes building blocks that we see over here these monomers would actually be amino acids and those amino acids moving forward in our course, we're gonna represent them as these circles and then for nuke laich acids. Um, the monomers thes pieces that we see here are really going to be nucleotides which moving forward in our course, we're going to represent what shapes that look like this. And so the rial main point here is that these monitors, they're going to vary what these building blocks are. They'll very depending on the type of bio molecule polymer that they're building, whether they're building carbohydrates, proteins or nucleic acids. And so, once again, we'll get to talk Maura about monomers and polymers moving forward in our course. And this is just the introduction. So I'll see you all in our next video

in this video, we're going to talk about building and breaking down column er's. And so if a cell wants to build a polymer, then it needs to perform a dehydration synthesis reaction. And so, as its name implies, with the synthesis part here, dehydration synthesis reactions are going to form Covalin bonds to link individual separate monomers together and begin to build a polymer. And so you can see that the synthesis here is all about forming and building a polymer Now, on the other hand, if a cell wants to break down a polymer into its small individual pieces, then it needs to perform a hydraulic Asus reaction. And so dehydration, synthesis and hydraulics reactions are opposite of one another. And so hydraulics is has the root license in it, which is all about cleaving and breaking things down. And so hydraulics. ISS is going to cleave Covalin bonds between the monomers and release the monomers as separate pieces by breaking down the polymer. And so, once again, dehydration synthesis is all about building a polymer, whereas hydraulics ISS is all about cleaving or breaking down the polymer. So let's take a look at our image down below to get a better understanding of the formation and breakdown of polymers. Now, what's important to note is that on the left hand side of our image, we have two separate monomers one over here and one over here and on the right hand side of our image. Notice that those monomers are now joined together CO violently. And so it's starting to build a polymer over here on the right hand side. And so, of course, if we want to join together to separate monomers and begin to build a polymer, we're going to need a dehydration synthesis reaction. And so, uh, in the dehydration synthesis reaction, the hydroxyl group, the O. H. Group of one monomer, is going to interact with the hydrogen on another monomer. And so O, h and H are going to release a water molecule and so you can see the blue. Ohh! Here is coming from this. Ohh! And the yellow H here is coming from this hydrogen. And so when water is released, as we see here, that is dehydrating the molecules. The molecules are losing a water molecule so the water molecules are being dehydrated. And in the process, it's synthesizing something. It is building a polymer. And so that's how the monomers are joined together, covertly here, as we can see now, if we wanted. If the cell wanted to do the opposite and break down this mantra or this polymer into its separate individual monomers, then it's gonna need the backwards reaction to release those two monitors and recall that is called hydraulics ISS. And so, once again, the license part is all about cleaving and breaking things down. And so this bond here can be cleaved or broken by using water. And that's what the hydro prefixes for in front of hydraulics. Is it saying water is needed in order? Thio, cleave or break it down and so notice that a water molecule is going to be added to the process, and it's going to split the molecule in half. And so once again, the biggest take away here is that if a cell needs to build a polymer, it will perform a dehydration synthesis reaction. And if the cell needs to break down a polymer, then it's going to perform. Ah, hydrologists reaction. And so that concludes our introduction to this concept, and we'll be able to get practice applying this throughout our course as we move forward. So I'll see you all in our next video.