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Asked by what499buds on 19 Jul 2024.
Question: What are polysaccharides?
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Andrew McDowall answered on 19 Jul 2024:
A saccharide in chemistry is a sugar molecule, a carbohydrate. Polysaccharides are large molecules formed by linking many single sugar molecules together –
– monosaccharides have one unit of sugar, for example glucose;
– disaccharides have two, for example sucrose, table sugar, or lactose.Both monosaccharides and
disaccharides are often refered to as sugars;
– oligiosaccharides have between 3 and 10 sugars linked together,
– polysaccharides have more than 10 sugars linked together, often vastly many more, for example
starch or cellulose.Polysaccharides are often divided into storage and structural classes, but can perform a range of other duties. In my own company we mostly use the ploysaccharides hydroxyethyl cellulose and xanthan gum to adjust how easily our coatings flow.
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Michael Schubert answered on 19 Jul 2024:
Andrew’s answer is great! There are lots of different types of sugars. You might be most familiar with glucose (a monosaccharide, and the most common one), fructose (another monosaccharide and a natural sugar in fruits, vegetables, and honey), and sucrose (a disaccharide made out of glucose and fructose). There are lots of other kinds of sugars as well, though.
As Andrew says, the kinds that chain together in large groups (more than 10 molecules, or units, linked together) are called polysaccharides. This can be large groups of the same type of sugar (called a homopolysaccharide or homoglycan) or it can be groups made up of several different types of sugars (called heteropolysaccharides or heteroglycans).
Andrew mentioned some examples of polysaccharides, like starch and cellulose. You might be surprised at how often you see polysaccharides in your everyday life! Paper, for example, is made almost entirely of cellulose, so the workbooks you do your assignments in are polysaccharides. Cotton is also almost entirely cellulose, so the shirt you are wearing could be a polysaccharide. It’s a bit of a strange thing to think about!
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