Macromolecules Lipids, Carbohydrates, Nucleic Acid, Excerpt 1 MIT 7.01SC Fundamentals of Biology
HAZEL SIVE: Another truism of biochemistry is that many of the molecules within cells are very large. And they're called macromolecules, to indicate this. So macromolecules. So these are often -- Biological molecules are often macromolecules. And these macromolecules are often polymers-- not always-- where a polymer is some kind of repeat of a monomer "n" times. And in formation of macromolecules, there are two kinds of reactions that you need to know. They are called condensation and hydrolysis reactions. And they go something like this. Condensation reactions form bonds. Hydrolysis reactions break bonds. And condensation reactions go something like this. If we call the monomer M, there would be a monomer with a hydroxyl group that interacts with another monomer that has a hydroxyl group. And the outcome of that would be a bond between the two monomers, with the release of water. And the flip of that, during a hydrolysis reaction, is exactly the opposite, w...