Chemical Forums
Specialty Chemistry Forums => Other Sciences Question Forum => Topic started by: jena on November 10, 2005, 12:22:19 PM
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Hi,
In order to reduce a sugar to a alcohol, would use an reductase to do this?
Thank You :)
EDIT: spelling mistake - enyme -> enzyme
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I thought sugars were already alcohols?
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Yes, sugars are polyhydroxylated, so they can definitely be considered alcohols already. However, in biochemistry a sugar alcohol is a sugar in which the aldehyde or ketone function in the sugar has been reduced to an alcohol.
Yes, an oxidoreductase would be the class of enzyme to catalyze such a reaction.
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I thought the only thing that made a sugar a sugar was the double bond O on one of the carbons. The rest didn't matter. With respect to the other functional groups of organic chemistry of course.
If you break the double bond O and take that bonding spot that was just freed and added a H thento it then you have an alcohol.
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constant thinker -
You might want to read these 2 sites before discussing sugar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose
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Sorry... :-[
..but is it not the double bonded O that makes a sugar a sugar. This is in respect to things like the COOH and other functional groups.