1. Polypeptides are very important biological compounds, also known as proteins.
ID: 967546 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Polypeptides are very important biological compounds, also known as proteins. How are polypeptides similar in structure to polyamides or polyesters?
2. Pesticides have more recently been designed to form polar products when metabolized by animals. For example methoxyclor has a structure like that of DDT but with OCH3 groups instead of Cl groups on benzene rings, making it more digestibile by bacteria in the gut. Explain why degrading into polar products will help solve the problem of bioaccumulation of this pesticide.
Explanation / Answer
1) polyesters and polyamides are condensation polymers, i.e. they are formed by combination of monomeric units with the elimination of a small molecule like water.
polyesters, polyamides and polypeptides consist of carboxylic acid as one of the monomeric unit
The polypeptides are similar to polypeptides as both contains amide linkage
-CO-NH- linkage is present, infact the polyamide is a copy formation of polypeptide but here we use dicarboxylic and diamine as monomers istead of amino acids
the linkage makes them strong polymers
2) the presence of OCH3 makes the bond hydrolyzable if it is present in pesticide, the chlorine group is not hydrolyzable so bacteria can not attack on it. hence the bioaccumulation of the pesticide with OCH3 group will not be much as compared to DDT.
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