Polysaccharides and Their Types — NEET Biology
✅ Asked in NEET 2023The acid insoluble pellet also has polysaccharides (carbohydrates) as another class of macromolecules. Polysaccharides are long chains of sugars. They are threads (literally a cotton thread) containing different monosaccharides as building blocks. For example, cellulose is a polymeric polysaccharide consisting of only one type of monosaccharide i.e., glucose. Cellulose is a homopolymer. Starch is a variant of this but present as a store house of energy in plant tissues. Animals have another variant called glycogen. Inulin is a polymer of fructose. In a polysaccharide chain (say glycogen), the right end is called the reducing end and the left end is called the non-reducing end. It has branches as shown in the form of a cartoon. Starch forms helical secondary structures. In fact, starch can hold I₂ molecules in the helical portion. The starch-I₂ is blue in colour. Cellulose does not contain complex helices and hence cannot hold I₂.
NTA focuses on the classification of polysaccharides, particularly testing knowledge of homopolymers like cellulose (glucose polymer), starch (glucose polymer), glycogen (glucose polymer), and inulin (fructose polymer). Students often confuse which monosaccharide makes up each polysaccharide—many wrongly assume all polysaccharides are glucose-based. The critical distinction is that inulin is specifically a fructose polymer, making it different from the glucose-based energy storage molecules. Additionally, NTA tests the starch-iodine complex formation: starch's helical structure traps I₂ (blue color), while cellulose's linear structure cannot. Remember: identify the monomer type and secondary structure for each polysaccharide to ace these questions.
This paragraph was tested 2 times in NEET.
Inulin is a polymer of: (NEET 2023)
Identify the substances having glycosidic bond and peptide bond, respectively in their structure. (NEET 2020)
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