Biomolecule
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A biomolecule or biological molecule is a loosely used term for molecules or more commonly ions that are present in organisms. Biomolecules including large macromolecules (or polyanions) such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and nucleic acids, as well as small molecules such as primary metabolites, secondary metabolites, and natural products. A more general name for this class of material is biological materials. Biomolecules are usually endogenous but may also be exogenous. For example, pharmaceutical drugs may be natural products or semisynthetic (biopharmaceuticals) or they may be totally synthetic.
Biology and its subsets of biochemistry and molecular biology study biomolecules and their reactions. Most biomolecules are organic compounds, and just four elements—oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen—make up 96% of the human body's mass. But many other elements, such as the various biometals, are present in small amounts.
The uniformity of specific types of molecules (the biomolecules) and of some metabolic pathways as invariant features between the diversity of life forms is called "biochemical universals" or "theory of material unity of the living beings", a unifying concept in biology, along with cell theory and evolution theory.
See also
- Biomolecular engineering
- List of biomolecules
- Metabolism
- Molecular biology
- Multi-state modeling of biomolecules
