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Home » Chemistry Homework Help » Biochemistry » Monosaccharides
Monosaccharides
As pointed out earlier, these are the simplest carbohydrates and cannot be hydrolysed to give still simpler carbohydrates. Monosaccharides containing aldehydes group are called aldoses while those containing ketonic group are called ketoses. They can be further classified into different categories depending upon the number of carbon atoms. For example,

Monosaccharides with three carbon atoms are called trioses.

Monosaccharides with four carbon atoms are called tetroses.

Monosaccharides with five, six and seven carbon atoms are called pentoses, hexoses and heptoses respectively.

Different types of Monosaccharides

Carbon atoms General term Aldehyde Ketone
3 Triose Aldotriose Ketotriose
4 Tetrose Aldotetrose Ketotetrose
5 Pentose Aldopentose Ketopentose
6 Hexose Aldohexose Ketohexose
7 Heptose Aldoheptose Ketoheptose

Some examples of various types of monosaccharides are being given below:



On carefully examining the monosaccharide molecules, we can realize that they contain one or more chiral carbon atoms. For example, aldohexoses contain four chiral carbons and therefore, (2)4, i.e. 16 optically active isomers should be possible.
 


Three of these sixteen aldohexones which occur widely in nature are D-glucose, D-galactose and D-mannose.

The letter D before the name of monosaccharides does not refer to dextrorotatory, but represents the configuration as derived from glyceraldehyde. Glyceraldehyde can be represented by two enantiomers as shown below as Fischer structures:



By convention a monosaccharide is given a D-configuration if hydroxyl group attached to the carbon adjacent to –CH2OH is on right hand side. On hydroxyl group attached to the carbon adjacent to –CH2OH is on left hand side.

Thus (+)-glyceraldehyde has D-configuration while (-)-glyceraldehyde has L-configuration. All those compounds which can be chemically correlated to (+)-glyceraldehyde are said to possess D-configuration while those which can be correlated to (-)-glyceraldehyde are said to possess L-configuration.

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