Scientia Publishing House – Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania

Biokémia agrármérnököknek [Biochemistry for Agricultural Engineers]

It was written to the university students of Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Faculty of Târgu Mureş, Department of Agricultural Engineering, Sfântu Gheorghe. During the writing of the book, we took into consideration that the content of the book should fit the previously learned general and organic chemistry both concerning content and didactic points of view, and give such a knowledge to the students they did not meet during their earlier studies but is strictly necessary for the understanding of biochemistry. Connected to two-tier training, we tried to reduce the course content to a level that the student can learn during a semester two hours per week. We hope that this book contains the material which is necessary within the framework of the BSc and which forms the basis for the MSc training, during which the acquired knowledge should be added the knowledge of “Biochemistry for Agricultural Engineers”. The majority of the book is made up of material necessary for BSc students. We have indented and reduced the font size of those parts that are not necessary for the successful test, but it is advisable to read them.

The first part of the book deals with the most important chapters of organic and biochemistry, in particular with the biogenic elements that make up the living organisms, with amino acids, peptides, proteins, the primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure of proteins, the carbohydrates, within which mono/ and polysaccharides, particularly with regard to cell wall polysaccharides, lipids, and within it phosphoglycerides and lipoproteins, the structure of the membranes, as well as nucleotides, pyrimidine and purine bases, nucleosides and nucleotide coenzymes. During the writing of the book, we tried to take care of that the students should not learn organic chemistry for their own sake but to receive as much material as it is definitely needed to establish biochemistry and later on the other subjects. We suggest to the students to study the following parts of the book if they are perfectly aware of the content of the first part of the book because without it they would not understand biochemistry.

The most important further chapters of the book deal with biological processes and biocatalysis, the metabolisms, transformation and storage of the energy, the tricarboxilic acid cycle, the metabolisms of the saccharides, the breakdown and the biosynthesis of the fats, the metabolisms of amino acids, breakdown and synthesis of nucleotides, purine and pyrimidine bases, and the composition of the polynucleotides. The book deals very shortly with the genesis of information macromolecules, the characteristics of the genetic information molecules, the transmission of the information, and the protein synthesis. For easier learning, each chapter concludes with a summary, which we hope contains the most important findings of the chapter.