Video Transcript
Which of the following best
describes the relationship between monosaccharides and polysaccharides? (A) Monosaccharides can be broken
down to form polysaccharides. (B) Many monosaccharides can join
together to form a polysaccharide. (C) Polysaccharides have
complementary binding sites to monosaccharides. Or (D) monosaccharides can be
joined together by bonds called polysaccharides.
Let’s start by reviewing some
terms. A saccharide is a technical name
for a sugar or carbohydrate, carbohydrates being one of the classes of molecules
that we often see in biology. The prefix mono- means one, while
the prefix poly- means many. When we talk about the chemical
structures of macromolecules, we use the term monomer to refer to one unit of the
smallest unit found in that structure and we use the word polymer to refer to
multiple monomers joined together into one molecule.
Within one class of macromolecules,
there may be multiple types of monomers such as monomer A and monomer B shown
here. Within the carbohydrates or
saccharides, for example, the monomers include glucose and fructose. If we join these monomers together,
we get a polymer. The polymer can consist of two
different monomers joined together. As we see here, this joining of
glucose and fructose would in fact create the polymer sucrose. Or a polymer can consist of
multiple instances of the same monomer joined together as we see in the case of the
polymer maltose, which consists of two glucose molecules joined together to make the
molecule.
So in this question, we’re asked to
describe the relationship between monosaccharides and polysaccharides. According to the definitions we
just went over, a monosaccharide would be a single sugar of the smallest unit, for
example, glucose or fructose, while a polysaccharide would be a molecule that
consists of multiple monosaccharides joined together such as the sucrose or maltose
that we saw in our example. So what is the relationship between
monosaccharides and polysaccharides? (B) Many monosaccharides can join
together to form a polysaccharide.
