Carbohydrate

Carbohydrates (a basic class of substance in biochemistry) are a primary means in organisms of storing or consuming energy. In autotroph?s, such as plants, food is converted in to starch for compressed storage. In heterotrophs? such as animals they have a use as metabolic fuel.

Categories

Typically carbohydrates are split in to the sweet sugars: monosaccharides, disaccharides and the unsweet starchy polysaccharides. Monosaccharides are simple, crystalline sugars. Disaccharides are made by joining two monosaccharides together (hence di-saccharides). Polysaccharides are very large molecules such as starch or glycogen? which are formed by many monosaccharides joining together (poly-saccharides).

Structure

Carbohydrates consist almost exclusively of just three elements: carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The ratio vary, but not much. Usually amount of carbon is the same or slightly greater than amount of oxygen, and amount of hydrogen is twice or slightly greater than amount of oxygen. Traditional general structure of carbohydrates is C_xH_2yO_y, but many important carbohydrates, like deoxyribose? C₅O₄H₁₀ have more hydrogen.

The structural components of plants are primarily composed of carbohydrates.

Example carbohydrates

Some important carbohydrates are:

Glucose	Fructose?	Ribose?	Deoxyribose?

Links:

• [Carbohydrate Nomenclature ]