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Carbohydrates - Coggle Diagram
Carbohydrates
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Simple carbohydrates
Monosaccharides
Glucose
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Glucose forms a hexagonal ring (hexose). It's the form of sugar that fuels respiration and it forms the base unit of many polymers such as starch or cellulose.
Alpha glucose: a product of photosynthesis, serving as the basis of the food web. This is needed to make ATP during cellular respiration.
Beta glucose: a product of photosynthesis, serving as the basis of the food web. Needed to make ATP during cellular respiration. It forms the polymer cellulose.
Fructose
Fructose, or fruit sugar (found in plants) acts as an alternative metabolite in providing energy, especially when glucose is not sufficient while the metabolic energy demand is high.
It can enter glycolysis and produce intermediates for cellular respiration. Fructose also catalyses glucose uptake and storage in the liver and accelerates carbohydrate oxidation after a meal.
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Galactose
Galactose is also a hexose sugar and has the same formula C6H12O6 but is less sweet. It is most commonly found in milk, but also found in cereals. Galactose can bind to glucose to make lactose (in breast milk) to lipids to make glycolipids or to proteins to make glycoproteins.
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Ribose
It forms the backbone of RNA and DNA. D-ribose is also important in the creation of ATP that all cells require to stay alive. Ribose is found in all living things.
Deoxyribose: it's the five-carbon sugar molecule that aids to form the phosphate backbone of DNA molecules, also found in all living things.
Disaccharides
Maltose
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Maltose is produced when amylase breaks down starch. It is found in germinating seeds such as baby as they break down their starch stores to use for food.
Lactose
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Lactose is commonly found in milk. The two subunits that make up lactose are glucose and galactose. In other words, it is a disaccharide derived from galactose and glucose.
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Sucrose
Sucrose provides your body with the energy required to perform physical and mental functions. Our bodies break down foods such as sucrose and starch into fructose and glucose during digestion.
Both fructose and glucose are metabolised by our bodies to release energy to our cells. Sucrose is the end product of photosynthesis and the primary sugar transported in the phloem of most plants. It is used by plants as a storage molecule.
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Reactions
Condensation: a condensation reaction is a reaction in which two or more molecules combine to form a larger molecule, with the simultaneous loss of a small molecule such as mater. This term is usually used to describe reactions where a new C-C bond is formed. An example of this reaction is the condensation of two glucose monomers to form a disaccharide maltose. Energy is requires.
Hydrolysis: Through the process of hydrolysis, polymers are broken down into monomers, and in this reaction water molecules are used during the breakdown of polymers; the water molecule is inserted across the bond of the polymer, breaking the bond. An example of a hydrolysis reaction is when the disaccharide maltose is broken down to form two glucose monomers. Energy is released.
Complex carbohydrates
Polysaccharides
Starches
Its main function is to store energy for plants. Starch is also a source of sugar in animals' diets; they break down starch using amylase to get energy. Animals do not store starch, instead they store carbohydrates in from the polysaccharide glycogen, only in plants.
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Fibers
Fiber is a carbohydrate that cannot be broke down into sugar, it is made up of the indigestible parts of compounds of plants which pass relatively unchanged through our stomach and intestines.
Glycogen
This polysaccharide of glucose serves as a form of a short term energy storage in animals, fungi and bacteria. The controlled breakdown of glycogen and release of glucose increases the amount of glucose that is available between meals. Hence, glycogen serves as a buffer to maintain blood-glucose levels too.
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Cellulose
In plants, cellulose is an important cell wall component. It is responsible for stabilising and making the cell wall rigid and tough. Cellulose is not a component of the human body.
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It is the most abundant organic compound on Earth, found in cell walls of plants and is indigestible for most animals due to orientation of bonds between glucose
Polysaccharides are macromolecules, polymers formed by large numbers of monosaccharides (monomers), joined together by covalent bond (glycosidic)