Carbohydrates

Flashcards covering key vocabulary pertaining to carbohydrates, their types, structures, and properties from the lecture notes.

Carbohydrates

A major source of energy in our diet, made from the elements carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, also known as saccharides or sugars.

Monosaccharides

The simplest carbohydrates consisting of three to seven carbon chains, classified as aldoses if containing an aldehyde group and ketoses if containing a ketone group.

Disaccharides

Carbohydrates formed from the combination of two monosaccharides through a dehydration reaction.

Polysaccharides

Complex carbohydrates formed when many monosaccharides are linked together.

Aldoses

Monosaccharides that contain an aldehyde group.

Ketoses

Monosaccharides that contain a ketone group.

Reducing sugars

Carbohydrates that can reduce another substance; commonly have a free carbonyl group, usually in an aldehyde.

Glycosidic bond

A bond formed between two monosaccharides during the dehydration reaction.

Chirality

A property of molecules with nonsuperimposable mirror images; molecules are chiral if they have at least one chiral carbon atom.

D and L Notation

A system used to classify sugars based on the position of the -OH group on the chiral carbon farthest from the carbonyl carbon.

Cyclic structure (Haworth structure)

The more stable ring forms of pentose and hexose sugars created through the reaction of a carbonyl group and a hydroxyl group.

Mutarotation

The process of interconversion between an alpha and beta anomer of a sugar when placed in a solution.

Cellulose

A structural polysaccharide made of unbranched chains of glucose units, linked by beta-1,4-glycosidic bonds, resistant to hydrolysis and indigestible by humans.

Glycogen

A highly branched polymer of glucose stored in the liver and muscles of animals, used for energy between meals.

Photosynthesis

The process by which plants convert CO2 and H2O into glucose using energy from the sun.

Stereoisomers

Compounds with the same molecular formula but different arrangements of atoms in space.