Describe the structures of proteins and nucleic acids, and discuss the functional relationship between these two types of organic compounds.

Proteins have 4 types of structures: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary. The primary structure is the sequence of amino acids formed by peptide bonds between each amino acid. The secondary structure results from hydrogen bonds between the lateral chains of each amino acid. In the tertiary structure the lateral chains of the amino acids form other kinds of bonds like ionic bonds, disulfide bonds, intermolecular forces, etc. Finally, the quaternary structure consists of 2 or more subunits of protein to form a functional protein.

Nucleic acids are composed of nucleotides that bond together to form a chain. There are 2 types of nucleic acids: DNA and RNA. DNA has 2 antiparallel chains connected by the nitrogenous bases of the nucleotides forming a double helix structure. RNA has only one chain of nucleotides and forms secondary structures in order to carry out different functions.

The functional relationship between these two kind of molecules is the gene expression, DNA contains the genes that code different amino acids that form proteins, the RNA transcripts that information and with the ribosomes in the cytosol of the cells translates that information into amino acids that will be part of the proteins.