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Biochemistry is a dynamic, rapidly growing
field, and the goal of this color atlas is to
illustrate this fact visually. The precise boundaries
between biochemistry and related
fields, such as cell biology, anatomy, physiology,
genetics, and pharmacology, are dif cult
to define and, in many cases, arbitrary. This
overlap is not coincidental. The object being
studied is often the same—a nerve cell or a
mitochondrion, for example—and only the
point of view differs.
For a considerable period of its history, biochemistry
was strongly influenced by chemistry
and concentrated on investigating metabolic
conversions and energy transfers. Explaining
the composition, structure, and metabolism
of biologically important molecules
has always been in the foreground. However,
new aspects inherited from biochemistry’s
other parent, the biological sciences, are
now increasingly being added: the relationship
between chemical structure and biological
function, the pathways of information
transfer, observance of the ways in which
biomolecules are spatially and temporally distributed
in cells and organisms, and an awareness
of evolution as a biochemical process.
These new aspects of biochemistry are bound
to become more and more important.
Owing to space limitations, we have concentrated
here on the biochemistry of humans
and mammals, although the biochemistry of
other animals, plants, and microorganisms is
no less interesting. In selecting the material
for this book, we have put the emphasis on
subjects relevant to students of human medicine.
Themain purpose of the atlas is to serve
as an overviewand to provide visual information
quickly and ef ciently. Referring to textbooks
can easily fill any gaps. For readers
encountering biochemistry for the first time,
some of the platesmay look rather complex. It
must be emphasized, therefore, that the atlas
is not intended as a substitute for a comprehensive
textbook of biochemistry.
As the subject matter is often dif cult to visualize,
symbols, models, and other graphic
