Origin of Biochemistry

History and origin of biochemistry:

The term biochemistry simply derives from the combining from bio- meaning " life" and chemistry. The word is first recorded in English in 1848,while in1877, Felix Hoppe-Seyler used the term in the forward to the first issue of Zeitschrift fur Physiologische Chemie ( Journal of Physiological Chemistry) as a synonym for physiological chemistry and argued for the setting up of institutes dedicate to its studies. Nevertheless, several sources cite German chemist Carl Neuberg as having coined the term for the new discipline in1903,and some credit it to Franz Hofmeister.

The history of biochemistry can be said to have started with the ancient Greeks who were interested in the composition and processes of life, although biochemistry as a specific scientific discipline has its beginning around the early 19th century. Some argued that the beginning of biochemistry may have been the discovery of the first enzyme, diastase ( today called as amylase),in1833 by Anselme Payen, while others considered Eduard Buckner first demonstration of a complex biochemical process alcoholic fermentation in cell-free extracts to be the birth of biochemistry . Some might also point to the influential work of Justus von Liebig from 1842, Animal chemistry,or organic chemistry in its applications to physiology and pathology,which presented the chemical theory of metabolism,or even earlier to the 18th-century studies on fermentation and respiration by Antoine Lavoisier.

The subject of study in biochemistry is the chemical processes in living organisms,and its history involves the discovery and understanding of the complex components of life and the elucidation of pathways of biochemical processes. Much of biochemistry deals with the structures and functions of cellular components such as proteins, carbohydrates,lipids,nucleic acids and other biomolecules; their metabolic pathways and flow of chemical energy through metabolism; how biological molecules give rise to the processes involved in the control of information flow through biochemical signalling ,and how they relate to the functioning of whole organisms. Over the last 40 years, the field has had success in explaining living processes such that now almost all areas of the life sciences from botany to medicine are engaged in biochemical research.

Amoung the vast number of different biomolecules,many are complex and large molecules ( called polymers), which are composed of similar repeating subunits (called monomers), Each class of polymeric biomolecules has a different set of subunits types. For example ,a protein is a polymeric whose subunits are selected from a set of twenty or more amino acids, carbohydrates are formed from sugars known as monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides, lipids are formed from fatty acids and glycerols, and nucleic acids are from nucleosides. Biochemistry studies the chemical properties of important biological molecules,like proteins, and in particular the chemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions. The biochemistry of cell metabolism and the endocrine system has been extensively described. Other areas of biochemistry include the genetic code ( DNA,RNA), protein synthesis,cell membrane transport, and signal transduction.

Probiochemistry:

In this regards, the study of biochemistry began when biology first began to interest society- as the ancient Chinese developed a system of medicine based on yin and yang,and also the five phases, which both resulted from alchemical and biological interest . It begins in the ancient Indian culture also with an interest in medicine ,as they develop the concept of three humours that were similar to the Greeks four humours.They also developed into the interest of body being composed of tissues. As in the majority of early sciences, the Islamic world greatly contributed to early biological advancements as well as chemical advancements ; especially with the introduction of clinical trials and clinical pharmacology presented in Avicenna's " The Canon of Medicine" . On the side of chemistry, early advancements were heavily attributed to an exploration of alchemical interests but also include metallurgy,the scientific method, and early theories of atomism. In more recent times, the study of chemistry was marked by milestones such as the development of Mendeeeves periodic table, Dalton's atomic model, and the conservation of mass theory . this last mention has the most importance of the three due to the fact that this law intertwines chemistry with thermodynamics in an intercalated manner.

Biochemistry as a recognizably distinct discipline emerged at the beginning of the 12th century, Initially, it focused on the chemical changes of cellular metabolism. biochemistry had its roots in 19th-century physiological chemistry, animal chemistry ,and the chemistry of biological materials. The earliest views on the chemistry of life posited that it was fundamentally different from nonliving chemistry. From around 1835, the views had developed that protoplasm,seen as a jellylike single homogeneous form of matter within organisms,carried out all the processes of the intracellular breakdown of food,respiration, and biosynthesis . Despite this general belief,neither Justus Liebig nor Ernst Hoppe-Seyler,two eminent chemists ,accepted this view. Hydrolytic enzymes such as amylase, maltase and pepsin were known in the nineteenth century but were not thought to act within cells.

Probably the single most important experiment that initiated the study of biochemistry was the preparation by Eduard Buchner in1897 of the cell-free extract of yeast, called enzyme called zymase,which fermented glucose and produced carbon dioxide and ethanol. Buchner regarded zymase as a single enzyme, although others soon showed that it contained several. this work confirmed fermentation as a chemical process and discredited the protoplasm theory. furthermore , the distinction between catalysis by hydrolytic extracellular enzymes and by intracellular enzymes disappeared.

Enzymes;

The nature of catalysis began to be explored early in the 20th century with the realization that enzymes bind their substrates during the reaction. At the beginning of the 20th century, Emil Fischer proposed that a substrate fits its enzyme like a key fits a lock. Mathematical analysis of enzyme action enabled Leonor Michaelis and Maud Menten to formulate the classic equations for enzyme action in 1913. The chemical nature of enzymes as proteins remained uncertain until James Summer crystallized in the following years and were all shown to be proteins. In 1959, Sanford Moore and William Stein determined the first primary sequence ( the amino acid sequence ) of an enzyme, ribonuclease. The path was now open, using X- ray crystallography to reveal the catalytic process in three- dimensional models of enzymes.

Metabolism:

Part of the significance of Buchner's work lay in initiating the study of fermentation as a metabolic pathway. Otto Meyerhof demonstrated that muscle juice had similar properties,although producing lactic acid rather than ethanol. Thus , the glycolytic pathway, associated with the names of Gustav Embden, Meyerhof, and Otto Warburg, was elucidated over the first four decades of the twentieth century, In the first years of the 20th century, Franz Knoop and also Henry Dakin outlined the basis of fatty acid oxidation, although this pathway was not fully formulated until the 1950s. The cyclical nature of some metabolic pathways became apparent to Hans Krebs i his study of the synthesis of urea,which led to the description of the urea cycle in 1931. In 1937, building on much work on cell oxidation reactions.Krebs formulated the citric acid cycle ( often called the Krebs cycle in his honor).Identification of acetyl coenzyme A in the early 1950s facilitated the understanding of pyruvate oxidation, fatty acid oxidation, and the citric acid cycle.

Bioenergetics and Membranes:

The importance of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) emerged slowly from a study of the co-factors necessary for glycolysis in yeast and muscle.