Basic biological data and calculations for graduate students

Résumé 0

Many graduate students in biochemistry and molecular biology have no clear representation of the size and mass of biological particles, such as proteins, nucleic acids, nucleoprotein complexes, or viruses. Some do not know how one determines the concentration of these invisible objects, and others have only a vague notion about what is an extinction coefficient or a stoichiometry. This article provides course material and exercises for classroom or individual study to train these students before their first practical session. It deals with the aforementioned essential concepts and recalls some basic calculation and conversion methods. It also uses examples from a research laboratory to illustrate how useful the knowledge of particle properties is for the preparation of the experimental work, and for the analysis and interpretation of the results. This scientific treatment of biological data should enable students to find important information by logical thinking with the help of a few memorized facts and procedures.