Carbon-based Life - Key Carbon-based Molecules in The Life Processes

Key Carbon-based Molecules in The Life Processes

The most notable groups of chemicals used in the processes of living organisms include:

  • Proteins, which are the building blocks from which the structures of living organisms are constructed (this includes almost all enzymes, which catalyse organic chemical reactions)
  • Nucleic acids, which carry genetic information
  • Carbohydrates, which store energy in a form that can be used by living cells
  • Lipids, which also store energy, but in a more concentrated form, and which may be stored for extended periods in the bodies of animals.

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