CLASSIFICATION OF CARBOHYDRATES

CLASSIFICATION OF CARBOHYDRATES
Carbohydrates are classified into (3) three major classes. These are: Monosaccharides,
Oligosaccharides and Polysaccharides. The word “saccharide” is derived from the Greek
word “sackaron” meaning sugar.
Monosaccharides are simple sugars consisting of single polyhydroxy aldelyde or ketone
unit. The most abundant monosaccharide in nature is the six-carbon sugar D-glucose.
Other monosaccharides include: Mannose, Galactose and Fructose.
Oligosaccharides consists of short chains of monosaccharide units or residues
joined by characteristic linkage called glycosidic bonds. The most abundant ones are the
diasaccharides which contain two monosaccharide units joined together by the glycosidic
bond. Typical example is sucrose which consists of two six carbon sugars, D-glucose and
D-fructose.
Polysaccharides are sugar polymers that occur in a continuous range of sizes, they
usually contain more than 20 monosaccharide units. Polysaccharides may have hundreds
and thousands of monosaccharides units joined together by glycosidic bonds