Energy disaccharides

Some disaccharides serve as soluble energy sources for animals and plants, whereas others are important because they are intermediates in the decomposition of polysaccharides. A major energy source for humans is sucrose, which is common table sugar. Sucrose contains a-glucose linked to j6-fructose. About 80 million tons of sucrose are produced each year. Of that, 60% comes from sugar cane and 40% comes from sugar beets. Example treats a disaccharide that is an energy source for insects. 

Figure 2. Potential energy maps of a) GalA(l->2)Rha as a function of the glycosidic dihedrals, b) the same disaccharide with the galacturonic acid acetylated at 02 and 03. The conformation used to build integer helices is indicated.

Figure 5. Acetylated RG-I helices generated from the low-energy conformations of the disaccharides (see Figures 2 and 3). Left the AA type with n = -3 and h = 6.75 A right the AB type with n = 2 and h = 7.48 A.

Fig. 3. Projections on the (<1>, maps of the CICADA conformational search of the pentasaccharide. The dots indicate the values of all the optimized conformations determined by CICADA at each glycosidic linkange in 8 kcal/mol energy window For comparison, the isocontours, drawn in 1 Kcal/mol steps with an outer limit of 8 kcal/mol, represent the energy level of each disaccharide and calculated with the relaxed grid search approach. Dashed regions represent the locations of the low energy conformation of the pentasaccharide plotted on the potential energy surfaces of the constituting disaccharide segments...

Biologically, carbohydrates are most important as energy sources. This is especially true for monosaccharides, disaccharides, and starches. Starches also function as energy storage molecules in plants. Cellulose is an essential component of plant cell walls. 

The basic units of carbohydrates are the monosaccharides or simple sugars. These may be assembled into more complex structures such as disaccharides, polysaccharides, glycoproteins, and glycolipids. Carbohydrates serve as energy sources, energy reservoirs, structural components, and for cellular communication. 

Our procedure depends on a new computer program, RAMM (RAndom Molecular Mechanics), which is applicable to any kind of biomolecule. It is described in detail elsewhere (KoS r, T./ Petrak, F. Galova, Z. TvaroSka, I. Carbohvdr. Res.. in Press). Only the basic characteristics of RAMM and its application to conformational analysis of disaccharides are discussed here, concentrating on the effect of the orientations of pendant groups on the energy values at the various < ) and f torsion angles. 

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