Name: Biochemical Links
Uploaded: 2019-07-19
Duration: 7 min 22 s
Description: The name is Bond! We are glycosidic, phosphodiester and peptide bonds, and we have a lot of friends. Watch this video and learn more about these bonds and th...

Question

Explain the classes of carbohydrates with examples.

Accepted Answer

Carbohydrates are polyhydroxy aldehydes or ketones.

There are three main classes of carbohydrates.

Monosaccharides

Disaccharides

Polysaccharides

(1) Monosaccharides- These are the simple carbohydrates.

They are soluble in water and sweet in taste.

They cannot hydrolysed in smaller unit.

Their general formula is $C_{n} H_{2 n} O_{n}$ .

They are further classified on the basis of their number of carbon atom.

(a) Triose- They contain $3$ carbon. eg- glyceraldehyde

(b) Tetrose- They contain $4$ carbon. eg- erythrose.

(c) Pentose- They contain $5$ carbon. eg- dioxyribose

(d) Hexose- They contain $6$ carbon. eg- glucose.

(e) Heptose- They contain $7$ carbon. eg- Galactoheptose.

(2) Disaccharides- These are present in large amount in the cells. It is formed when two monosaccharides units joined together. They are also known as double sugars.

eg- Maltose- consist of two glucose units.

Sucrose- Consist of glucose and fructose.

(3) Polysaccharides- They are formed by the polymerisation of monosaccharide units. Monosaccharide units are joined by a glycosidic bond. They have further broken down into smaller units i.e monosaccharides. The polysaccharide can be linear, branched or unbranched molecules.

These are classified into two types-

(1) Homopolysaccharides (2) Heteropolysaccharide

(1) Homopolysaccharides- It consists of a single type of monosaccharide unit. eg- cellulose, glycogen.

(2) Heteropolysaccharides- It consists of more than one type of monosaccharides.

Explain the classes of carbohydrates with examples.

Important Questions on Biomolecules

Learn and Prepare for any exam you want !