- [Voiceover] Let's study the molecular structure
of triglycerides.
And in everyday language we often call these fats.
We often call these fats.
Which is often kind of a feared word
but as we'll see it's essential for life.
Fats in a liquid form is sometimes referred to as oils.
And a more technical term for triglycerides--
Triglyceride is the word that you might hear
when you go to the doctor's office.
But it can also be referred to as tri--
And I'm going to do the different parts in different colors.
Triacylglycerol.
I actually like this second name more
because it makes sense when you break down
the molecule, triacylglycerol.
But triglycerides, this is literally fat.
Or where what most people typically refer to as fat,
they're talking about triglycerides.
If you were to get your cholesterol checked
or if your parents get their cholesterol checked,
they'll probably get a report on triglycerides
which is really a measure of the fat
concentration in their blood.
But let's think about what a triglyceride is.
And so here I have the constituent molecules
of a triglyceride.
This molecule on the left, this is glycerol.
Let me do it in that same blue
that I just wrote glycerol in.
This is glycerol.
We can see we have a three carbon chain right over here.
Each of those carbons is attached
to a hydroxyl group, an O-H group.
If you just get attached to one of them,
this makes you an alcohol
so this definitely makes it an alcohol.
This is sometimes called a triol.
It has three hydroxyl groups right over here.
And this is considered to be a sugar alcohol.
A sugar alcohol.
We see why it's an alcohol, it's got its hydroxyl groups.
And it's also sweet.
If you were to drink a solution of
glycerol it will actually be sweet.
And you might already be familiar with the word glycerol
from the famous Bush song Glycerine.
Glycerine is referring to glycerol.
Glycerine.
♫ Glycerine ♫
So there you go, that is glycerol right over there.
And you form a triglyceride when a glycerol molecule
reacts with three fatty acid molecules.
So these characters on the right,
these are each a fatty acid.
These are each a fatty acid.
This is one fatty acid, this is another fatty acid,
this is another fatty acid.
Now why do we call them "fatty" and in particular,
why do we call them a "fatty acid"?
Well, you have one part that has these
big carbon chains here.
And I drew these dot dot dots 'cause it can actually have
different numbers of carbons.
They can have anywhere between--
Based on my research you can have into the
high 20's numbers of carbons.
In most biological systems you tend to have an
even number of carbons.
And in most animal biology
you tend to have 16 to 20 carbons.
And if it's an even number, you're talking about 16, 18, 20
carbons involved in these fatty acids.
All the ones I've drawn have all single bonds.
We have as many hydrogens bonded to it as possible.
But you could also have double bonds there.
And we'll talk about that more when we talk about
saturated and unsaturated fats.
So you have this carbon chain here.
That part is hydrophobic, it won't dissolve well in water.
And that's why people tend to refer to it as kind of fatty.
And then you have on the left-hand,
or at least the way I've drawn it on the left-hand side,
you have a carboxyl group.
So this right over here, this is a carboxyl group.
Carboxyl group.
And this is acidic.
It's very easy for it to donate a hydrogen
because if it donates a hydrogen
or a hydrogen proton I should say.
Because if this oxygen takes those electrons
that negative charge can be spread between
this oxygen and this oxygen over here.
And so it's very willing to give away a hydrogen
so that makes it acidic.
So that's where the "acid" comes from.
That's a fatty acid.
And when you have these three molecules
they don't have to be identical.
This one could have 18 carbons.
This one over here could have 16 carbons.
This one could have 20 carbons,
it might have a couple of double bonds in it.
So they could all be different.
But let's think about how they actually form together.
Like those robot movies from the 80's like Voltron.
So what you have happening,
and this is gonna be a little bit of organic chemistry
and this really just a review of dehydration synthesis.
You have a lone pair
in each of these oxygens.
These oxygens that are part of the hydroxyl group.
So let me draw that.
So you have a lone pair there
or actually you have two lone pairs.
You have two lone pairs over there.
And so you can imagine a world where
if they just bump past each other in just the right way
this carbon over here is gonna
have a partially positive charge.
It has three bonds to two oxygens.
Oxygens that are very elctro negative.
And so this guy, if he just bumps into it in the right way,
these electrons could be used
to form a bond with this carbon,
the one that has that partially positive charge.
And just as that is happening this bond can be let go.
This oxygen say, "Ok look, you're sharing in another pair?
"I've had enough of that.
"I'm going to take these electrons for myself
"or even better I'm going to take them for myself
"or to eventually capture or maybe I capture first,
"it can happen in all different ways, a hydrogen proton.
"I'm gonna capture a hydrogen proton and then I can become
"this collection right over here
"could become a water molecule."
I'm doing just a very high level overview of the mechanism.
You can go to more depth of this
when you go into organic chemistry.
But this could happen three times.
So it can happen again over here.
It could happen again over here.
This guy takes this--
Let me do that in that same white color.
So he takes both of these electrons
that he so badly wants to take back and maybe uses it
to grab a hydrogen proton.
It could happen the other way.
Maybe grabs a hydrogen proton
and then just as he's leaving, this guy comes back.
So there's different ways that all of these could happen
but this is the general idea.
And then you have it happening a third time down here.
One of these lone pairs
come and form a bond with this carbon.
This carbon in the carbonyl group,
part of this carboxyl group.
And so once again,
this guy can take those two electrons away
and maybe share that pair with a hydrogen proton.
Once again, this is forming a water molecule,
this is forming a water molecule.
So three water molecules are going to be produced.
This is why we call it dehydration synthesis.
We're losing three water molecules
in order to form these bonds.
So what's it going to look like after this has happened?
Well, let me scroll down here.
And actually let me just zoom.
Actually just let me scroll down here.
So this green bond over here is going to now--
So this green bond that's this big long curvy thing
is this green bond.
And this second green bond
is this green bond.
And this third green bond is that green bond.
The way I've drawn it right now,
each of these oxygens haven't let go of its hydrogens.
And that could actually happen before
or after or all at the same time.
Chemistry actually is not a clean thing.
But I could, if I want, I could draw the hydrogens here.
I could draw the hydrogens.
I could draw the hydrogens over here
and then these would have a positive charge.
These would have a positive charge.
But then you could imagine another water molecule coming by
and kind of taking one of these hydrogen protons,
taking the hydrogen protons away from each of those oxygens.
And then you would be left with
this molecule right over here.
And remember we produced three water molecules.
So that's one,
two
and three water molecules.
And now this molecule,
if you ignore the water molecules out there,
this is a triglyceride.
Let me write it again.
Actually, let me write the slightly more technical term.
Sometimes referred to as
triacylglycerol.
Well we know where the glycerol comes from.
It has this glycerine or this glycerol
backbone right over here.
Now what is "acyl" mean?
Well acyl is a functional group
where you have a carbon that's part of a carbonyl group.
It can be bound to a kind of an organic chain
right over here, I'll just call that R.
And then it's bound to something else.
And so we have three acyl groups so "triacyl".
So this right over here, this right here is an acyl group.
This right over here is an acyl group.
Each of them, they're bound to an oxygen right over here.
And actually that gives us more practice
with another functional group.
When you have a situation--
Let me get another color out.
When you have a carbonyl group
and let's say you have just an organic chain right over here
and then you have an oxygen
and then you have another organic chain right over there.
This thing
is called an ester.
And you actually see three esters right over here.
So you see this ester.
This ester right over here.
You see this ester right over here.
And then this ester right over here.
So this wasn't just practice in learning about
fats or triacylglycerol or triglycerides.
These are all words for the same thing.
It's giving us good practice with these functional groups.
But now you see where triacylglycerol comes from.
You have glycerol backbone
and you have these three acyl groups
that allow it to attach to the fatty acids.
So that's what fat is when people are referring to it.
And this is just pictures of it.
This is coconut oil right over here.
It's right here, it's below its melting point
so it's in its solid form.
And this right over here, I'm not sure which type
of oil this is but it's past its melting point
and so it's in its liquid form.
So people would typically refer to this as an oil.
But this is made up of a bunch of triglycerides.
This is a big mixture of triglycerides here.
And if you were to see their molecules,
they would all have generally this shape
but the fatty acids would have different numbers of carbons
and might have different numbers of double bonds.