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Erythrose is a tetrose saccharide with the chemical formula C4H8O4. It has one aldehyde group, and is thus part of the aldose family. The natural isomer is D-erythrose; it is a diastereomer of ThreoseThreose.
Erythrose was first isolated in 1849 from rhubarb by the French pharmacist Louis Feux Joseph Garot (1798-1869), Obituary of Garot (1869) Journal de pharmacie et de chimie, 4th series, 9 : 472-473. and was named as such because of its red hue in the presence of alkali metals (ἐρυθρός, "red").Garot (1850) "De la matière colorante rouge des rhubarbes exotiques et indigènes et de son application (comme matière colorante) aux arts et à la pharmacie" (On the red coloring material of exotic and indigenous rhubarb and on its application (as a coloring material) in the arts and in pharmacy), Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie, 3rd series, 17 : 5-19. Erythrose is named on p. 10: "Celui que je propose, sans y attacher toutefois la moindre importance, est celui d'érythrose , du verbe grec 'ερυθραινω, rougir (1)." (The one i.e., that I propose, without attaching any importance to it, is that of erythrose, from the Greek verb ερυθραινω, to redden (1).)
Erythrose 4-phosphate is an intermediate in the pentose phosphate pathway and the Calvin cycle.
Oxidative bacteria can be made to use erythrose as its sole energy source.
Although often inconsequential, erythrose in aqueous solution mainly exists as the hydrate owing to the following equilibrium:
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