I need to quantify biochemical changes in my biological samples and I am targeting to use pure biochemicals which include the following: glycogen, DNA, RNA, actin, albumin, triolein and phosphatidylcholine. A look at various products from sigma-aldrich are confusing me, especially on terminologies involved. Kindly suggest on which products (names) is should settle on. Your response will be much appreciated.
Dear John,
The following links contain the basic biochemical compounds with examples for each class:
http://www.people.vcu.edu/~gmplunke/bio151/sg3.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochemistry
http://www.ck12.org/physical-science/Biochemical-Compound-Classification-in-Physical-Science/lesson/Biochemical-Compound-Classification-MS-PS/
http://study.com/academy/lesson/biochemical-compounds-definition-classes.html
Hoping this will be helpful,
Rafik
Perhaps part of the problem is that some of the substances you named are not uniform at the microscopic level. For example, DNA and RNA molecules have base sequences, and their composition in terms of G+C content vary between organisms. As isolated, they also vary in length. Glycogen is a branched chain polymer, so it is also not uniform at a microscopic level. Albumin and actin are proteins, the sequences of which differ according to species. Phosphatidylcholine is a mixture of lipids with the same head group but various fatty acid chains, the composition of which varies by source. (Triolein is a uniform substance.) All of these substances can also vary in purity. So you need to clarify in your own mind what you mean by each of these substances, what properties of them you wish to measure, and how you intend to measure them. Are there simpler substances that are better defined that might be suitable for your purpose, such as small molecules like ATP or acetyl-CoA?
Your question is not sufficiently defined for a full answer. However, if you are studying biochemical changes in response to a perturbation of some sort, then energy metabolism can be monitored by ATP/ADP ratios and the rate of substrate utilisation (e.g. glucose or O2) and the rate of end product formation (e.g. lactate, succinate, acetate or CO2). Rates of DNA, RNA, lipid and protein synthesis can be measured using radioisotope incorporation. These are classical biochemical methods, but of course there are more sophisticated metabolomic methods now available depending on specialist equipment that you may have access to.
Many thanks to you all.
@Adam and Alan,...you have made me to rethink my problem in terms of intended properties of my components and measurements involved. Thank you.
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