Biochemical Terminology

Antony Mackinlay

Description

Languages are like organisms, they do not appear by spontaneous creation, they evolve, and so it is with the particular terminology of biochemistry which, as I document here, largely derives from Latin and Ancient Greek root words. In the early part of the 19th century, when chemistry had shaken off the shackles of alchemy, new elements, new compounds, new techniques were discovered that needed names. It was the classical languages, Greek and Latin, to which these early scientists turned. As chemical approaches were applied to biology, much molecular terminology has also derived from these languages. In this book the common technical terms encountered in biochemistry and related subjects are defined and their derivation from root words in Latin and Ancient Greek explained.

Sujets

• Life Sciences
• Sciences et techniques
• Biology
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris AU
• Date de parution: 26 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669832249
• Langue: English

Extrait

BIOCHEMICAL TERMINOLOGY
DERIVATIONS and DEFINITIONS of the UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE of BIOLOGY
Antony Mackinlay

Copyright © 2022 by Antony Mackinlay.
Library of Congress Control Number:
2022918755
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-3226-3

Softcover
978-1-6698-3225-6

eBook
978-1-6698-3224-9
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
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Rev. date: 10/26/2022
 
 
 
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CONTENT
Tables
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1Evolution of English
Chapter 2The Classics
Chapter 3Prefixes
Chapter 4Short Etymologies
Chapter 5 Absorb to Zoonoses – Terminology in Context
Notes
Bibliography

I have never met a person who is not interested in language.
Steven Pinker in The Language Instinct
For if you know the origin of a word, you more quickly understand its force. Everything can be more clearly comprehended when its etymology is known.
Isidore of Seville (560–636) in Etymologiae
When scientists needed a new word to describe a newly discovered process or component of living organisms, they raided Greek and Latin.
John Simpson, former editor of the Oxford English Dictionary , in The Word Detective
Etymology: the origin of a particular word.
Oxford English Dictionary
TABLES
Table 1.The 100 most frequently used English words
Table 2.English suffixes
Table 3.List of Old English names for body parts with Latin and Greek derivatives
Table 4.The Greek alphabet
Table 5.A selection of words containing Latin prefixes
Table 6.A selection of words containing Greek prefixes
Table 7.Latin words and phrases that are used in English
Table 8.The twenty-one amino acids
Table 9.The Genetic Code
Table 10.SI units and their prefixes
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to the following people who read versions of this book and who provided suggestions and words of encouragement: Aldo Bagnara, John Carmody, Garry Graham, Wendy Glenn, Michelle Meredyth and Peter Martin.
INTRODUCTION
Names are essential. In the early part of the nineteenth century, when chemistry had shaken off the shackles of alchemy, new elements, new compounds, new techniques were discovered that needed names. It was the classical languages, Greek and Latin, to which these early scientists turned. As chemical approaches were applied to biology, much molecular terminology has also derived from these languages.
But this did not happen overnight. The synthesis of urea from ammonium cyanate by Wohler in 1828 is often cited as a turning point that demonstrated that the synthesis of molecules found in living organisms depends only on normal chemistry. But it was still possible to hold that a mysterious vital force, the élan vital , operated within living cells, and even Pasteur inclined to this view later in the nineteenth century. This belief could no longer be entertained after Buchner showed in 1897 that the characteristic production of ethanol and carbon dioxide during fermentation by yeast could be carried out by a cell-free extract prepared from yeast. A result of this advance, together with early work on vitamins and enzymes and ongoing chemical investigations of medical significance, was that the new discipline of biochemistry emerged. Biochemistry explains how function depends on structure : function is the bio- part, structure is the chemistry part.
The distinctive approach of biochemistry has been to follow Buchner’s example and to characterize cellular components purified from cell-free extracts. This has been followed by the in vitro reconstruction from purified components of biological processes such as protein synthesis and DNA replication. The identification of DNA as the genetic material, the development of protein-sequencing methods and the determination of the three-dimensional structures of proteins, developments of the 1950s, meant that by then one could indeed describe biological processes in molecular terms. The success of the molecular approach is gauged by the appearance of different areas of biological research now known as molecular biology, chemical biology, cell biology, and molecular genetics as well as their numerous subdisciplines. To describe biochemistry as a universal language of biology as I do in the title of this book, is therefore no exaggeration. I am indebted to Kandel’s account of his research on memory for this term. 1
The exponential growth of biological research is reflected by the fact that barely fifty years separated the proposal for the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick and the determination of the complete DNA sequence of the human genome. As the molecular approach to the life sciences progressed what amounted to a new language was required. Languages are like organisms. They do not appear by spontaneous creation; they evolve, and so it is with the particular language of modern biochemistry which, as I will document here, largely derives from Latin and Ancient Greek root words.
Since Latin and Greek are rarely taught in schools and universities, the contribution of these languages to English and to science is not apparent. Many students studying microbiology, genetics, cell biology, botany, and zoology will encounter plenty of biochemical and molecular terminology. The same goes for the vocational life science areas of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, physiotherapy, nursing, agriculture, and veterinary science. In many cases, lectures are often fewer than is desirable simply because there is now so much to teach and to learn. Students in these subjects should also find interest in the material here from the point of view of language but also as a study aid that will help in coming to terms with terminology.
Students who find difficulty in this respect should be inspired by the example of Francois Jacob. His studies for a medical degree in Paris were interrupted by World War II and service with the Free French Army in Africa and Europe. After recovering from serious injuries incurred after the Normandy landings, he finished his medical degree but found it hard to settle down. Eventually he was accepted for research training at the Pasteur Institute in 1950. Jacob recalled his early days at the Pasteur Institute and his problems understanding laboratory jargon as follows:
But apart from the term enzyme , the words in the laboratory eluded me. I found in them nothing to grab hold of, nothing to hook on to. The words whirled around me in a sort of frenzy, but remained colourless, devoid of meaning. They seemed to be mocking me, defying me. As though they were guarding the portal to a temple to which I would be refused admittance. (Jacob 1995)
In 1965 he shared with André Lwoff and Jacques Monod, colleagues at the Pasteur, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology awarded for their foundational discoveries on the regulation of protein synthesis in bacteria.
Plan of the book. Chapter 1 introduces the theme: the evolution and structure of the English language. Chapter 2 illustrates the bare rudiments of Latin and Ancient Greek, including tables listing the main Latin and Greek prefixes as they have been employed in biological English. Many readers may prefer to skip this chapter and refer back to it later. Chapter 3 enlarges on the role played by the prefixes listed in chapter 2. Chapter 4 consists of some short etymologies of technical English. In chapter 5, biochemical nomenclature/terminology is considered under 150+ headings and their derivation defined. This is followed by notes and references relating to previous chapters together with the bibliography and the index. The latter contains over 2,000 entries and, reference to the list of topics at the beginning of chapter 5 and/or the index will enable the reader to find the meanings and derivations of each term encountered.
CHAPTER 1
Evolution of English
The earliest language spoken in Britain that we know about belonged to the family of Celtic languages, one of many different language families spoken in Europe and as far distant as India. These, the Indo-European languages, are known to have diverged from a precursor language that was spoken somewhere in the vicinity of Turkey, 5,000–9,000 years ago, but both the time and place are controversial. Britain was a province of the Roman Empire for over three and a half centuries. Julius Caesar, during a lull in his conquest of Gaul, visited Britain in 53 BCE. This apparently was more a reconnaissance mission than a full-scale military campaign, and it was not until 43 CE, during the reign of the emperor Claudius, that the Romans came back to occupy Britain, where they stayed until 410 (Heather 2006). Not coincidentally, 410 was also the year that Alaric and the Goths sacked Rome. This was the climax of a series of incursions by the ‘barbarian hordes’ as the Roman Empire crumbled. Britain had already been raided by Germanic t