Lecture 14. Carbohydrates

Friday 7 October 2016

Simple carbohydrates: monosaccharides. Pentoses and hexoses. Furanose and pyranose rings and their conformations. Complex carbohydrates. Glycobiology.

Reading: VVP4e - Ch.8, pp.217-230.

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Summary

Carbohydrates are the prime example of metabolic "fuel" for cells. The stepwise degradation of the monosaccharide glucose is a nearly universal pathway that yields biochemical energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Plants, in carrying out photosynthethesis, harvest the energy of sunlight by using it to convert carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates. Glucose, fructose, and ribose are among the most common monosaccharides in biochemistry, a monosaccharide being a carbohydrate that cannot be broken down into simpler carbohydrate fragments. Polymeric forms of such simple carbohydrates are the complex carbohydrates. Furthermore, carbohydrate moeities are linked to or incorporated in other biomolecules, forming nucleotides, glycolipids, and glycoproteins. Glycobiology examines the roles of carbohydrates, glycoproteins, and other glycoconjugates in cellular and multicellular structure and function.