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Glucose is a simple sugar with the molecular formula Carbon6Hydrogen12Oxygen6. Glucose circulates in the blood of animals as blood sugar. It is made during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, using energy from sunlight. It is the most important source of energy for cellular respiration. Glucose is stored as a polymer, in plants as starch and in animals as glycogen.
With six carbon atoms, it is classed as a hexose, a subcategory of the . D-Glucose is one of the sixteen aldohexose . The D-isomer, D-glucose, also known as dextrose, occurs widely in nature, but the L-isomer, L-glucose, does not. Glucose can be obtained by hydrolysis of carbohydrates such as milk sugar (lactose), cane sugar (sucrose), maltose, cellulose, glycogen, etc. It is commonly commercially manufactured from cornstarch by hydrolysis via pressurized steaming at controlled pH in a jet followed by further enzymatic depolymerization."glucose." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2015. Encyclopedia.com. 17 Nov. 2015 http://www.encyclopedia.com . Unbonded glucose is one of the main ingredients of honey.
In 1747, Andreas Marggraf was the first to isolate glucose. Glucose is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most important medications needed in a basic health system. The name glucose derives through the French from the Greek language γλυκός, which means "sweet," in reference to must, the sweet, first press of grapes in the making of wine.Thénard, Gay-Lussac, Biot, and Dumas (1838) "Rapport sur un mémoire de M. Péligiot, intitulé: Recherches sur la nature et les propriétés chimiques des sucres" (Report on a memoir of Mr. Péligiot, titled: Investigations on the nature and chemical properties of sugars), Comptes rendus, 7 : 106–13. From page 109 : "Il résulte des comparaisons faites par M. Péligot, que le sucre de raisin, celui d'amidon, celui de diabètes et celui de miel ont parfaitement la même composition et les mêmes propriétés, et constituent un seul corps que nous proposons d'appeler Glucose (1). … (1) γλευχος, moût, vin doux." It follows from the comparisons made by Mr. Péligot, that the sugar from grapes, that from starch, that from diabetes and that from honey have exactly the same composition and the same properties, and constitute a single substance that we propose to call glucose (1) … (1) γλευχος, must, sweet wine. The suffix "-ose" is a chemical classifier, denoting a carbohydrate.
Glucose supplies almost all the energy for the brain, so its availability influences psychological processes. When Hypoglycaemia, psychological processes requiring mental effort (e.g., self-control, effortful decision-making) are impaired.
As a result of its importance in human health, glucose is an analyte in common medical . Eating or fasting prior to taking a blood sample has an effect on analyses for glucose in the blood; a high fasting glucose blood sugar level may be a sign of prediabetes or diabetes mellitus.
[[File:Glucose metabolism.svg|thumb|Glucose metabolism and various forms of it in the process
Glucose-containing compounds and forms are digested and taken up by the body in the intestines, including starch, glycogen, disaccharides and monosaccharides.
Glucose is stored in mainly the liver and muscles as glycogen. It is distributed and used in tissues as free glucose.
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Use of glucose as an energy source in cells is by either aerobic respiration, anaerobic respiration, or fermentation. All of these processes follow from an earlier metabolic pathway known as glycolysis. The first step of glycolysis is the phosphorylation of glucose by a hexokinase to form glucose 6-phosphate. The main reason for the immediate phosphorylation of glucose is to prevent its diffusion out of the cell as the charged phosphate group prevents glucose 6-phosphate from easily crossing the cell membrane. Furthermore, addition of the high-energy phosphate group activates glucose for subsequent breakdown in later steps of glycolysis. At physiological conditions, this initial reaction is irreversible.
In anaerobic respiration, one glucose molecule produces a net gain of two ATP molecules (four ATP molecules are produced during glycolysis through substrate-level phosphorylation, but two are required by enzymes used during the process). In aerobic respiration, a molecule of glucose is much more profitable in that a maximum net production of 30 or 32 ATP molecules (depending on the organism) through oxidative phosphorylation is generated.
Other than its direct use as a monomer, glucose can be broken down to synthesize a wide variety of other biomolecules. This is important, as glucose serves both as a primary store of energy and as a source of organic carbon. Glucose can be broken down and converted into lipids. It is also a precursor for the synthesis of other important molecules such as vitamin C (ascorbic acid).
To monitor the body's response to blood glucose-lowering therapy, glucose levels can be measured. Blood glucose monitoring can be performed by multiple methods, such as the fasting glucose test which measures the level of glucose in the blood after 8 hours of fasting. Another test is the 2-hour glucose tolerance test (GTT) – for this test, the person has a fasting glucose test done, then drinks a 75-gram glucose drink and is retested. This test measures the ability of the person's body to process glucose. Over time the blood glucose levels should decrease as insulin allows it to be taken up by cells and exit the blood stream.
Each of the four carbons C-2 through C-5 is a stereocenter, meaning that its four bonds connect to four different substituents. (Carbon C-2, for example, connects to -(C=O)H, -OH, -H, and -(CHOH)4H.) In D-glucose, these four parts must be in a specific three-dimensional arrangement. Namely, when the molecule is drawn in the Fischer projection, the hydroxyls on C-2, C-4, and C-5 must be on the right side, while that on C-3 must be on the left side.
The positions of those four hydroxyls are exactly reversed in the Fischer diagram of L-Glucose. D- and L-glucose are two of the 16 possible aldohexoses; the other 14 are allose, altrose, galactose, gulose, idose, mannose, and talose, each with two , “D-” and “L-”.
It is important to note that the linear form of glucose makes up less than 3% of the glucose molecules in a water solution. The rest is one of two cyclic forms of glucose that are formed when the hydroxyl group on carbon 5 (C5) bonds to the aldehyde carbon 1 (C1).
The reaction between C-1 and C-5 yields a six-membered heterocycle system called a pyranose, which is a monosaccharide sugar (hence "–ose") containing a derivatised pyran skeleton. The (much rarer) reaction between C-1 and C-4 yields a five-membered furanose ring, named after the cyclic ether furan. In either case, each carbon in the ring has one hydrogen and one hydroxyl attached, except for the last carbon (C-4 or C-5) where the hydroxyl is replaced by the remainder of the open molecule (which is -(C(CH2OH)HOH)-H or -(CHOH)-H, respectively).
The ring-closing reaction makes carbon C-1 Chirality, too, since its four bonds lead to -H, to -OH, to carbon C-2, and to the ring oxygen. These four parts of the molecule may be arranged around C-1 (the anomeric carbon) in two distinct ways, designated by the prefixes "α-" and "β-". When a glucopyranose molecule is drawn in the Haworth projection, the designation "α-" means that the hydroxyl group attached to C-1 and the -CH2OH group at C-5 lies on opposite sides of the ring's plane (a trans arrangement), while "β-" means that they are on the same side of the plane (a cis arrangement). Therefore, the open-chain isomer -glucose gives rise to four distinct cyclic isomers: α--glucopyranose, β--glucopyranose, α--glucofuranose, and β--glucofuranose. These five structures exist in equilibrium and interconvert, and the interconversion is much more rapid with acid catalysis.
The other open-chain isomer -glucose similarly gives rise to four distinct cyclic forms of -glucose, each the mirror image of the corresponding -glucose.
The rings are not planar, but are twisted in three dimensions. The glucopyranose ring (α or β) can assume several non-planar shapes, analogous to the "chair" and "boat" conformations of cyclohexane. Similarly, the glucofuranose ring may assume several shapes, analogous to the "envelope" conformations of cyclopentane.
In the solid state, only the glucopyranose forms are observed, forming colorless crystalline solids that are highly Solubility in water and acetic acid but poorly soluble in methanol and ethanol. They melt at ( α) and ( β), and Decomposition at higher temperatures into carbon and water.
The open-chain form is thermodynamically unstable, and it spontaneously to the cyclic forms. (Although the ring closure reaction could in theory create four- or three-atom rings, these would be highly strained, and are not observed in practice.) In solutions at room temperature, the four cyclic isomers interconvert over a time scale of hours, in a process called mutarotation.. Starting from any proportions, the mixture converges to a stable ratio of α:β 36:64. The ratio would be α:β 11:89 if it were not for the influence of the anomeric effect. Mutarotation is considerably slower at temperatures close to .
Mutarotation consists of a temporary reversal of the ring-forming reaction, resulting in the open-chain form, followed by a reforming of the ring. The ring closure step may use a different -OH group than the one recreated by the opening step (thus switching between pyranose and furanose forms), or the new hemiacetal group created on C-1 may have the same or opposite handedness as the original one (thus switching between the α and β forms). Thus, though the open-chain form is barely detectable in solution, it is an essential component of the equilibrium.
Note that the D- prefix does not refer directly to the optical properties of the compound. It indicates that the C-5 chiral center has the same handedness as that of D-glyceraldehyde (which was so labeled because it is dextrorotatory). The fact that D-glucose is dextrorotatory is a combined effect of its four chiral centers, not just of C-5; and indeed some of the other D-aldohexoses are levorotatory.
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In the lumen of the duodenum and small intestine, the glucose oligo- and polysaccharides are broken down to monosaccharides by the Pancreas and intestinal glycosidases. Other polysaccharides cannot be processed by the human intestine and require assistance by intestinal flora if they are to be broken down; the most notable exceptions are sucrose (fructose-glucose) and lactose (galactose-glucose). Glucose is then transported across the apical membrane of the by SLC5A1 (SGLT1), and later across their Cell membrane by SLC2A2 (GLUT2).
Some glucose is converted to lactic acid by , which is then utilized as an energy source by brain cells; some glucose is used by intestinal cells and erythrocytes, while the rest reaches the liver, adipose tissue and muscle cells, where it is absorbed and stored as glycogen (under the influence of insulin). Liver cell glycogen can be converted to glucose and returned to the blood when insulin is low or absent; muscle cell glycogen is not returned to the blood because of a lack of enzymes. In Adipocyte, glucose is used to power reactions that synthesize some fat types and have other purposes. Glycogen is the body's "glucose energy storage" mechanism, because it is much more "space efficient" and less reactive than glucose itself.
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