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Lactose is a disaccharide found in animal milk. It consists of a molecule of D-galactose and a molecule of D-glucose bonded by beta-1-4 glycosidic linkage.. A carbohydrate (/ ˌ k ɑːr b oʊ ˈ h aɪ d r eɪ t /) is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula C m ...
Sugar is the generalized name for sweet, short-chain, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. They are composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. There are various types of sugar derived from different sources. Generally speaking, chemical names ending in -ose indicate sugars.
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. [1] A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, and metabolism. Over the last decades of the 20th century, biochemistry has become successful at ...
For example, the aldohexose glucose may form a hemiacetal linkage between the aldehyde group on carbon 1 and the hydroxyl on carbon 4, yielding a molecule with a 5-membered ring, called glucofuranose. The same reaction can take place between carbons 1 and 5 to form a molecule with a 6-membered ring, called glucopyranose.
Carbohydrates are typically stored as long polymers of glucose molecules with glycosidic bonds for structural support (e.g. chitin, cellulose) or for energy storage (e.g. glycogen, starch). However, the strong affinity of most carbohydrates for water makes storage of large quantities of carbohydrates inefficient due to the large molecular ...
Natural saccharides are generally composed of simple carbohydrates called monosaccharides with general formula (CH 2 O) n where n is three or more. Examples of monosaccharides are glucose, fructose, and glyceraldehyde. [4] Polysaccharides, meanwhile, have a general formula of C x (H 2 O) y where x and y are usually large numbers between 200 and ...
Examples of disaccharides include sucrose, maltose, and lactose. Polysaccharides are polymerized monosaccharides, or complex carbohydrates. They have multiple simple sugars. Examples are starch, cellulose, and glycogen. They are generally large and often have a complex branched connectivity.
The synthesis of carbohydrates is very important to the study of biochemistry and certain kinds of synthetic chemistry since carbohydrates play important roles in many biological systems. In nature, monosaccharides are synthesized biologically from raw materials through the processes of photosynthesis in plants and certain prokaryotes, or by ...