Discuss Why Hydrogen Bonding Is Essential for Life

Throughout biochemistry there are many bonds without which life as it is on earth today would not be possible.
One of the most important bonds of these is the hydrogen bond, a weak chemical bond that is present in
essential biological molecules such as water and polypeptides. A hydrogen bond is defined by Campbell and
Reece as occurring when a hydrogen atom is covalently bonded to an electronegative atom but attracted to
another electronegative atom. In water molecules, there are several key reasons why hydrogen bonds can be
formed and explaining them in water a good way to show the chemistry. Firstly, the presence of covalent bond
between the hydrogen and the oxygen means that the electrons in the outer shells of both atoms are shared- 1
electron from hydrogen and 1 electron from oxygen. Since the 2 electrons are shared, they are free to move
within the covalent bond to the atom that is the most electronegative. In the case of water, this is oxygen. As
a result of the electrons moving to the oxygen side of the bond, the hydrogen becomes less electron-dense and
becomes a slight positive charge known as a delta-positive charge. It is this positive charge that has the ability
to attract other negatively charged objects, since opposite electrostatic charged atoms attract each other. On
the oxygen atom of each water molecule there is a lone pair of electrons that are negatively charged, which
makes oxygen delta-negative. This means that between water molecules, the delta-positive hydrogen of one
molecule is able to attract a lone pair of electrons from the delta-negative oxygen atom of another water
molecule

A hydrogen bond, however, is comparatively weak to covalent or ionic bond, as much as 22 times time
weaker, so in order to explain why hydrogen bonds are so necessary in life it is perhaps not significant that
hydrogen bonds are weak on their own, since the majority of their use within strong structures is facilitated
by their strength as a large number of hydrogen bonds. For example, the fundamental strength of tendons and
skin lies within the many hydrogen bonds in the collagen protein.

For formation of collagen, the strength of hydrogen bonds is required to firstly join two amino acid chains
(polypeptides) together into a helix. Three helices are then bound into a triple helix by yet more hydrogen
bonds. The result is a fibrous quaternary protein structure with a high tensile strength that the mammalian
skeletal muscles could not function without. Tendons attach skeletal muscles to their respective bones and we
would simply not be able to move without them. Other uses of hydrogen bonds in proteins include contributing
to the specific conformational shape of globular proteins, called protein folding.

A precise 3D shape is required in most enzymes so that the shape of binding site (active site) is complementary
to the chemical reacting with the enzyme (substrate). Hydrogen bonds are essential, along with ionic bonds,
covalent bonds, disulphide bonds and hydrophobic interactions, for making secondary structures (i.e. alpha-
helices and beta-pleated sheets) coil into a tertiary structure. A tertiary structure, or a quaternary structure after
further protein folding, can then be utilized as a specific enzyme within organisms to carry out specific
metabolic reactions. It is the hydrogen bonding found in water, in fact, that makes the metabolic reactions in
the human body so efficient. The slight increase of strength between water molecules caused by hydrogen
bonds means that in comparison to other fluids without hydrogen bonds, water requires a lot of energy to raise
the temperature of it. This is called high heat specific capacity and may be defined as the amount of energy
required to change the temperature of 1g of a substance by 1C, an attribute that is especially useful when the
body is actively maintaining the body temperature at 37C. Since it takes so much energy to change the
temperature of water, the molecule estimated to take up 70% of an adults body, the core temperature of the
body is resistant to fluctuations. For metabolic reactions this is very useful because it means that the enzymes
can work at their optimum temperature, often the same as 37C core temperature, and thus the metabolic
reactions within the body are very efficient. For every 10C below optimum temperature, the rate of successive
substrate-enzyme collisions decreases by 2 to 3 times [Campbell and Reece, p862]. High specific heat capacity
also benefits marine environments by resisting temperature fluctuations, which is perhaps why marine food
chains are often many times longer than those of terrestrial organisms. The high heat capacity of water is one
of several hydrogen-bonding attributes that benefit the marine environments, unsurprisingly, with the high
surface tension and the small relative density of ice also playing a large role in how aquatic organisms survive.
The high surface tension of water is perhaps best explained by relating it to close proximity of adjacent water
molecules in aqueous solution. This closeness is of course caused by the numerous hydrogen bonds (Fig. 2)
existing between the water molecules and is named cohesion, a word that can be defined as being united as a
whole. Fig. 2 numerous hydrogen bonds As a result of the molecules being united as a whole, the top of a
body of water has a membrane that is able to withstand a small downwards force before becoming pierced.
The classic example of the organism that takes advantage of this phenomenon is the pond skater insect, which
is able to utilize the high surface tension of lakes and ponds by walking on the surface of the water to look for
prey. The other hydrogen-bonding attribute that benefits marine life especially but not exclusively is the small
relative density of ice. While most liquids become denser when they change to a solid state, aqueous water
gets less dense. This means that a volume of ice has a lighter mass than the same volume of its liquid
counterpart and thus ice can float on top of water. The reason that ice is less dense than aqueous water lies
within the microstructure of the molecules. Normally, a solid is denser than a liquid because the particles
within a solid are more tightly packed together and thus more particles can fit into a given space. However,
within ice, the hydrogen bonds between water molecules create a lattice structure Fig. 3 that increases the
distance between the molecules. This means that less water molecules per volume exist in a solid form than
as a liquid form, as much as 10% less than water at 4C [Campbell and Reece, 2008].