Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates and lipids/fats are a very important part of our lives. They have many similarities

and differences among each other, which distinguish them from other macromolecules.

Carbohydrates, which include sugar and their polymers, are used by organisms for fuel and

building material. They come in many various forms going from simplicity to complexity. The

simplest, monosaccharides, compose of single sugars whose parts are arranged around

asymmetric carbons. They generally have a molecular formula that is a multiple of CH2O.

Glucose, the most common monosaccharide, is of central importance in the chemistry of life.

Energy is stored in glucose materials and extracts cells in the process of cellular respiration.

When two monosaccharides join by covalently bonding through glycosidic linkage, they form a

disaccharide, or double sugar. If more than two, such as hundreds and thousands bond, they form

polysaccharides, or macromolecules.

There are two main types of polysaccharides; storage and structural. Starch and glycogen are

used for storage. In plants, starch is mainly used because if it is synthesized, the plant can stock

an abundance of sugar. Starch can be found in wheat, corn, rice, and other grains. Glycogen, on

the other hand, is more extensively branched, therefore, it is stored by humans and animals.

Cellulose and chitin are the structural polysaccharides. Cellulose is a tough component of the

walls in a plant cell. Structure is important since that’s what organisms build strong materials from.

In parallel cellulose molecules, the cell wall of a plant is held together by bonds which are

arranged in microfibrils. These strong cables help build walls for plants and humans. Chitin,

conversely, mainly deals with strengthening the arthropods’ exoskeletons.

The one thing all lipids have in common is the fact that they are hydrophobic. The three families of

lipids are fats, phospholipids, steroids. Glycerol, a form of alcohol, constructs fats when it is mixed with fatty acids who consist of a carboxyl group on one end and hydrocarbon on the other. Three

fatty acids linked to a glycerol make up triacylglyceral. If the carbon atoms composing the tail don’t

form any double bonds then a unsaturated