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The structural components of plants are formed primarily from cellulose. Wood is largely cellulose and lignin, while paper and cotton are nearly pure cellulose. Cellulose is a polymer made with repeated glucose units bonded together by beta-linkages. Humans and many animals lack an enzyme to break the beta-linkages, so they do not digest cellulose.
After cellulose, lignin is the second most abundant biopolymer and is one of the primary structural components of most plants. It contains subunits derived from p -coumaryl alcohol , coniferyl alcohol , and sinapyl alcohol , [ 15 ] and is unusual among biomolecules in that it is racemic .
A macromolecule is a very large molecule important to biological processes, such as a protein or nucleic acid. It is composed of thousands of covalently bonded atoms . Many macromolecules are polymers of smaller molecules called monomers .
Chitin is the second most abundant polysaccharide in nature (behind only cellulose); an estimated 1 billion tons of chitin are produced each year in the biosphere. [1] It is a primary component of cell walls in fungi (especially filamentous and mushroom-forming fungi), the exoskeletons of arthropods such as crustaceans and insects, the radulae ...
Starch: Starch is an inexpensive biodegradable biopolymer and copious in supply. Nanofibers and microfibers can be added to the polymer matrix to increase the mechanical properties of starch improving elasticity and strength. Without the fibers, starch has poor mechanical properties due to its sensitivity to moisture.
Starch, cellulose, and glycogen ("animal starch") are common glucose polymers (polysaccharides). Some of these polymers (starch or glycogen) serve as energy stores, while others (cellulose and chitin, which is made from a derivative of glucose) have structural roles. Oligosaccharides of glucose combined with other sugars serve as important ...
In molecular biology, the term macromolecular assembly (MA) refers to massive chemical structures such as viruses and non-biologic nanoparticles, cellular organelles and membranes and ribosomes, etc. that are complex mixtures of polypeptide, polynucleotide, polysaccharide or other polymeric macromolecules.
The swelling of starch grains and their growth was described by a molecular-aggregate model, which he also applied to the cellulose of the plant cell wall. The modern usage of ' micelle ' refers strictly to lipids, but its original usage clearly extended to other types of biomolecule , and this legacy is reflected to this day in the description ...