
2024-09-30T13:07:45
Glucose is a sugar with the molecular formula C6H12O6. Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, [4] a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, using energy from sunlight. Glucose is used by plants to make cellulose—the most abundant carbohydrate in the world—for use in cell walls, and by all living organisms to make adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is used by the cell as energy.[5][6][7] In energy metabolism, glucose is the most important source of energy in all organisms. Glucose for metabolism is stored as a polymer, in plants mainly as amylose and amylopectin, and in animals as glycogen. Glucose circulates in the blood of animals as blood sugar.[5][7] The naturally occurring form of glucose is d-glucose, while its stereoisomer l-glucose is produced synthetically in comparatively small amounts and is less biologically active.[7] Glucose is a monosaccharide containing six carbon atoms and an aldehyde group, and is therefore an aldohexose. The glucose molecule can exist in an open-chain (acyclic) as well as ring (cyclic) form. Glucose is naturally occurring and is found in its free state in fruits and other parts of plants. In animals, glucose is released from the breakdown of glycogen in a process known as glycogenolysis. Glucose, as intravenous sugar solution, is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.[8] It is also on the list in combination with sodium chloride (table salt).[8] The name glucose is derived from Ancient Greek γλεῦκος (gleûkos) 'wine, must', from γλυκύς (glykýs) 'sweet'.[9][10] The suffix -ose is a chemical classifier denoting a sugar. History Glucose was first isolated from raisins in 1747 by the German chemist Andreas Marggraf.[11][12] Glucose was discovered in grapes by another German chemist – Johann Tobias Lowitz – in 1792, and distinguished as being different from cane sugar (sucrose). Glucose is the term coined by Jean Baptiste Dumas in 1838, which has prevailed in the chemical literature. Friedrich August Kekulé proposed the term dextrose (from the Latin dexter, meaning "right"), because in aqueous solution of glucose, the plane of linearly polarized light is turned to the right. In contrast, l-fructose (usually referred to as d-fructose) (a ketohexose) and l-glucose (l-glucose) turn linearly polarized light to the left. The earlier notation according to the rotation of the plane of linearly polarized light (d and l-nomenclature) was later abandoned in favor of the d- and l-notation, which refers to the absolute configuration of the asymmetric center farthest from the carbonyl group, and in concordance with the configuration of d- or l-glyceraldehyde.[13][14]
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