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What is an oligosaccharide?

Updated: 8/11/2023
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10y ago

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Oligosaccharides is one of the group of carbohydrates.They are formed by the fusion of 2 to 10 monosaccharides.

here are some other characteristics of oligosaccharides.

  • they are comparatively less sweet in taste than monosaccharides.
  • their solubility is low in water.
  • On hydrolysis oligosaccharides yield from 2 to 10 monosaccharides.The oligosaccharides yielding two monosaccharides are known as disaccharides.e.g sucrose,maltose,lactose etc.Similarly those yielding three monosaccharides are known as trisaccharides and so on.
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10y ago
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12y ago

Look at the prefixes.

Oligo means short.

Poly means many.

And, of course saccharides mean sugars.

Oligosaccharides means short chain sugars.

Polysaccharides means many sugars in the chain.

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What does monosachharide disaccharide and oligosaccharide have in comain?

Monosaccharide = one sugar. Disaccharide = two sugars. Oligosaccharide = short chain of sugars. All are sugars, in chains or otherwise.


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Why might it be advantageous to add a preassembled block of 14 sugar residues to a protein in the ER rather than building the sugar chains step-by-step on the surface of the protein by the sequential?

The preassembled sugar chain allows better quality control. The assembled oligosaccharide chains can be checked for accuracy before they are added to the protein; if a mistake were made in adding sugars individually to the protein, the whole protein would have to be discarded. Because far more energy is used in building a protein than in building a short oligosaccharide chain, this is a much more economical strategy. This difficulty becomes apparent as the protein moves to the cell surface: although sugar chains are continually modified by enzymes in various compartments of the secretory pathway, these modifications are often incomplete and result in considerable heterogeneity of the glycoproteins that leave the cell. This heterogeneity is largely due to the restricted access that the enzymes have to the sugar trees attached to the surface of proteins. The heterogeneity also explains why glycoproteins are more difficult to study and purify than nonglycosylated proteins.


Where are proteins produced within cells?

Proteins are produced in the cytoplasm, in the rough endoplasmic reticulum, in mitochondria, and in chloroplasts. Proteins consist of one or more polypeptide chains. Polypeptides are synthesized by ribosomes as they travel along strands of messenger RNA. This synthesis begins at free (unattached) ribosomes in the cytoplasm, but as it proceeds some ribosomes are moved to the rough endoplasmic reticulum and embedded in its membrane. Whether a ribosome is moved depends on the sequence of amino acids in the first part of the polypeptide chain to be translated. The polypeptides that are produced in the endoplasmic reticulum complete their coiling and folding (secondary and tertiary structure) within the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum, where some of them will also combine with other chains to form more complex proteins (quaternary structure). Proteins synthesized in the rough endoplasmic reticulum are destined for certain sites, e.g. the endoplasmic reticulum itself, lysosomes, the plasma membrane, or for secretion from the cell. Those that are leaving the endoplasmic reticulum pass through the Golgi body, where they may be further processed, e.g. with the addition of oligosaccharide components. Proteins whose synthesis is completed in the cytoplasm at free ribosomes go to other destinations, such as the nucleus, mitochondria, and chloroplasts. The mitochondria and chloroplasts, which are thought to be descendants of ancient free-living prokaryotic cells, have some genes of their own and synthesize some proteins using their own transcription and translation machinery, including their own (prokaryote-like) ribosomes.


Name two types of carbohydrates?

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Is maltose an oligosaccharide?

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What will happen if an oligosaccharide like sucrose is directly injected into the blood stream?

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What are glycolipids and glycoproteins?

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What has the author Rong Maw Lin written?

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What has the author Simeon George Bowers written?

Simeon George Bowers has written: 'A new and orthogonal amine protecting group and a strategy towards two-directional oligosaccharide syntheses'


What are Differences between oligosaccharides and polysaccharides?

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