News tagged with polysaccharides
Bacterial attachment mimics the just-in-time industrial delivery model
(PhysOrg.com) -- In the human world of manufacturing, many companies are now applying an on-demand, just-in-time strategy to conserve resources, reduce costs and promote production of goods precisely when ...
Nov 30, 2011 |
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Unexpected exoskeleton remnants found in Paleozoic fossils
Surprising new research shows that, contrary to conventional belief, remains of chitin-protein complex -- structural materials containing protein and polysaccharide -- are present in abundance in fossils of ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Feb 07, 2011 |
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Bacteria use Batman-like grappling hooks to 'slingshot' on surfaces
Bacteria use various appendages to move across surfaces prior to forming multicellular bacterial biofilms. Some species display a particularly jerky form of movement known as "twitching" motility, which is made possible by ...
Jul 18, 2011 |
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Biomedical breakthrough: Blood vessels for lab-grown tissues (w/ Video)
Researchers from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have broken one of the major roadblocks on the path to growing transplantable tissue in the lab: They've found a way to grow the blood vessels and capillaries ...
Jan 12, 2011 |
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Invisibility cloak needed for cooperation? Unusual lipopolysaccharide enables symbiosis between bacterium, fungus
(PhysOrg.com) -- We and all other organisms must constantly grapple with bacteria. Whether for a necessary symbiosis or an infection, carbohydrate structures on cell surfaces play an important role in the ...
Sep 07, 2010 |
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Scientists crack code of critical bacterial defense mechanism
Scientists have combined chemistry and biology research techniques to explain how certain bacteria grow structures on their surfaces that allow them to simultaneously cause illness and protect themselves from the body's defenses.
Apr 25, 2010 |
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Molecular freight: Synthetic nanoscale transport system modeled on nature
(PhysOrg.com) -- Just like our roads, there is a lot of traffic within the cells in our bodies, because cell components, messenger molecules, and enzymes must also be brought to the right places in the cell. One of these ...
Dec 21, 2009 |
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New tissue scaffold regrows cartilage and bone
(PhysOrg.com) -- MIT engineers and colleagues have built a new tissue scaffold that can stimulate bone and cartilage growth when transplanted into the knees and other joints.
Medicine & Health / Medical research
May 11, 2009 |
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All decked out: Networks of chitin filaments are integral components of diatom silica shells
(PhysOrg.com) -- A whole microcosm of various bizarrely shaped life forms opens up when you look at diatoms, the primary component of ocean plankton, under a microscope. The regularly structured silica shells of these tiny ...
Dec 01, 2009 |
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Vi typhoid vaccine proves highly effective in young children
A new study has found that a currently available yet underused vaccine against typhoid fever is highly effective in young children and protects unvaccinated neighbors of vaccinees.
Medicine & Health / Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
Jul 22, 2009 |
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Wetter is better: New microscopy methods improve accuracy of microbial biofilm imaging
(PhysOrg.com) -- At a former uranium mill-tailing site in Rifle, Colorado, scientists are studying how microbes interact with minerals and metals to better understand processes that can help remediate the ...
Apr 26, 2011 |
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Technique tricks bacteria into generating their own vaccine
Scientists have developed a way to manipulate bacteria so they will grow mutant sugar molecules on their cell surfaces that could be used against them as the key component in potent vaccines.
Feb 23, 2009 |
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Antibodies trick bacteria into killing each other
The dominant theory about antibodies is that they directly target and kill disease-causing organisms. In a surprising twist, researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have discovered that certain antibodies ...
Nov 14, 2011 |
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Toward more cost-effective production of biofuels from plant lignocellulosic biomass
In 1925, Henry Ford observed that fuel is present in all vegetative matter that can be fermented and predicted that Americans would some day grow their own fuel. Last year, global biofuel production reached ...
Nov 16, 2011 |
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Getting more anti-cancer medicine into the blood
Scientists are reporting successful application of the technology used in home devices to clean jewelry, dentures, and other items to make anticancer drugs like tamoxifen and paclitaxel dissolve more easily in body fluids, ...
Jan 26, 2011 |
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Polysaccharide
Polysaccharides are long carbohydrate molecules, of repeated monomer units joined together by glycosidic bonds. They range in structure from linear to highly branched. Polysaccharides are often quite heterogeneous, containing slight modifications of the repeating unit. Depending on the structure, these macromolecules can have distinct properties from their monosaccharide building blocks. They may be amorphous or even insoluble in water.
When all the monosaccharides in a polysaccharide are the same type, the polysaccharide is called a homopolysaccharide or homoglycan, but when more than one type of monosaccharide is present they are called heteropolysaccharides or heteroglycans.
Examples include storage polysaccharides such as starch and glycogen, and structural polysaccharides such as cellulose and chitin.
Polysaccharides have a general formula of Cx(H2O)y where x is usually a large number between 200 and 2500. Considering that the repeating units in the polymer backbone are often six-carbon monosaccharides, the general formula can also be represented as (C6H10O5)n where 40≤n≤3000.
For more information about Polysaccharide, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
