Deep-sea creatures have 3 major biochemical components such as proteins, enzymes, and cell membranes that they have to rely on to keep their cells functioning under these extreme environments. The article “Biochemical Ecology of Deep‑Sea Animals” by George N. Somero explains all the functions of these components. Somero tells us how cell membranes are flexible barriers that protect the cells with the extreme hydrostatic pressure and also regulate movements of molecules that come in and out of the cells. In the deep Ocean it must remain fluid even though there are extremely low temperatures and high hydrostatic pressure (water pressure). He explains that deep-sea creatures have to adapt to these environments by altering the lipid compositions(fats) in the membrane, so they don’t get rigid. Enzymes are specialized proteins that speed up chemical reactions. They are extremely sensitive to high water pressure and often lose their function and shape at deep depths, however deep-sea enzymes created pressure-adapted enzymes that can manage the extreme temperatures and high hydrostatic pressure. Other proteins such as structural and metabolic proteins involved in movement evolved so they can remain stable in the deep ocean. Deep-sea creatures have very different adaptations in their biochemical components compared to shallow water creatures which means that shallow water animals would not be able to survive in the extreme conditions of the deep ocean. Somero also talks about how these adaptations are essential for deep sea animals to survive because it allows them to maintain muscle function, metabolism, and cellular integrity in a habitat where the pressure and temperature would typically destroy these components. Cell membranes, enzymes, and proteins are the building blocks of cells and have to go under intense adaptations to survive in the extreme environment of the deep ocean. 

Another way that deep sea creatures have to adapt in its extreme environments is how they get their food. Deep sea creatures are able to survive off of almost no sunlight.  In “The Biology of the Deep Ocean” by Peter Herring, the organisms living in the deep ocean rely on a limited supply of nutrients that sink from the surface that doesn’t consistently fall down, this is known as marine snow. Since plants aren’t able to go through photosynthesis, most deep-sea animals have to depend on marine snow. Herring talks about how this is “a perpetual shower of minute detrital particles falling from the upper layers of the sea” (Herring 45). The nutrients that fall down include dead plankton, fecal pellets, and fragments of larger organisms, providing the foundation for deep-ocean food webs. Since nutrients are scarce, Herring explains that “the deep ocean is fundamentally a food-limited environment” (Herring 112). This forces animals to develop eating strategies, such as filter feeding, scavenging, and taking advantage when big animals fall such as large whales. This shows how animals that live in the deep ocean have to change their biochemical structures to survive off of the marine snow that does not happen consistently. 

High hydrostatic pressure also affects how deep-sea organisms gather their food and nutrients. In the article "Adaptations to High Hydrostatic Pressure," By George N. Somero talks about how the extreme pressure changes the function of metabolic enzymes, which means the sea creatures had to evolve biochemical systems capable of extracting energy efficiently from scarce organic material” (Somero 577). Digestion enzymes and nutrient processing start to fail at about 50-100 atm, which means the deep-sea creatures have to have a pressure-resistant metabolic pathway to be able to digest and process food properly. Somero talks about how pressure-sensitive systems such as dehydrogenase and adenylyl cyclase start to malfunction earlier than complex structures such as Na+, K+-ATPase and actin, which start to fail at about 200 atm. This shows how intense water pressure limits how non-adapted sea creatures can metabolize nutrients at deeper depths (Somero 577). This causes deep sea organisms to rely on highly specialized enzymes and membrane structures to digest the marine snow that falls from higher up in the ocean. It also must rely on these enzymes and membranes to scavenge organic debris and exploit the rare food that falls(such as dead whales or bigger fish). This article shows that high water pressure doesn’t only affect how deep-sea creatures live, but also how they eat, and how their biochemical systems adapt to the intense environments.