Molecular biology is the scientific discipline that aims
Molecular biology is the scientific discipline that aims to study the processes that are developed in living beings from a molecular point of view.
In its modern sense, molecular biology intends to explain the phenomena of life from its macromolecular properties. Two macromolecules in particular are their object of study:
1) Nucleic acids, among which the most famous is deoxyribonucleic (or DNA) acid, the gene component.
2) Proteins, which are the active agents of living organisms.
Within the human genome project, the following definition on molecular biology can be found: the study of the structure, function and composition of biologically important molecules.
This area is related to other fields of biology and chemistry, particularly genetic and biochemistry engineering. Molecular biology mainly concerns the understanding of the interactions of the different cell systems, which includes many relationships, including DNA with RNA, protein synthesis, metabolism, and how all these interactions are regulated to achieve a proper functioning of the cell.
The difference between organic chemistry and molecular or biological chemical biology is that in biological chemistry the DNA molecules have a history and, therefore, in their structure they tell us about their history, of the past in which they have been constituted, while an organic molecule, created today, is only witnessing its present, without past and without historical evolution
When studying the biological behavior of the molecules that make up living cells, molecular biology brushes other sciences that address similar issues: thus, for example, together with genetics it is interested in the structure and functioning of genes and the regulation (induction and repression) of the intracellular synthesis of enzymes and other proteins. With cytology, it deals with the structure of subcellular corpuscles (nucleus, nucleolus, mitochondria, ribosomes, lysosomes, etc.) and its functions within the cell. With biochemistry studies the composition and kinetics of enzymes, interested in the types of enzymatic catalysis, activations, competitive or alestheric inhibitions, etc. It also collaborates with the phylogenetics by studying the detailed composition of certain molecules in the different species of living beings, providing valuable data for the knowledge of evolution.
However, it differs from all these sciences listed both in the specific objectives and in the methods used to achieve them. Just as biochemistry investigates in detail the metabolic cycles and the integration and disintegration of the molecules that make up living beings, molecular biology aims to fix with preference in the biological behavior of macromolecules (DNA, RNA, enzymes, hormones, etc.) inside the cell and explain the biological functions of the living being
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