Summary of Concept 5.2

Concept 5.2

Notes

• Discusses primarily about the various types of sugars and they're applications in life.
• Carbohydrates are organic compounds made of sugar molecules.
• All sugar molecules have the ratio of 1 Carbon: 2 Hydrogen: 1 Oxygen, and is a various multiple of CH2O.
• One kind of sugars are called monosaccharides, and they only contain one unit of sugar.
• Glucose and Fructose are both monosaccharides and can often be found in sweet things we eat such as candy and honey.
• Our body needs monosaccharides in order to burn into energy. Another kind of sugars are disaccharides.
• Dissacharides link fructose molecules and glucose together.
• Examples of disaccharies are table sugars that come from plants such as beets and sugarcane.
• Our body uses dissacharides to store glucose for later use.
• The last kind of sugars are called polysaccharides, or complex carbohydrates, and they are long polymer chains created from simple sugar monomers.
• Starch is a good example of polysaccharides. Starch is found in plant cells, and in many plants that we eat every day.
• Animal cells do not have starch, but rather a different polysaccharide called glycogen.
• We humans store glycogen in our livers and break it down when we need glucose.
• All carbohydrates are hyrophilic as they all have the hydroxyl group contained in them.

Concept Check

1. Explain the difference between a monosaccharide and a disaccharide. Give an example of each.
Monosaccharides are sugars with only one unit, and encompasses things like candy or fruits. Dissacharides are sugars that are made of two monosaccharides, and make up things like milk sugar (lactose) and cane sugar.

2. Compare and contrast starch, glycogen, and cellulose.
While all of the above are polysaccharides, they all come from different organisms. Starch is found in plant cells and is entirely composed of long chains of glucose monomers. Glycogen is a polysaccharide that animals store excess sugar with. And cellulose is similar to starch in that it is entirely formed of glucose, and it protects the cells of a plant, preventing it from entirely flopping over.

3. How do animals store excess glucose molecules?
Animals store excess glucose molecules by turning it into the polymer called glycogen. When they require energy, glycogen is broken down into the more simple glucose.