Question

Both, cellulose and starch are composed of many glucose molecules joined together in long chains. A) Indicate what type of biomolecules these are, identify the monomer and the polymer. B) Us, humans, we can digest starch but not cellulose. Why can’t we digest cellulose if it’s composed of glucose just like starch? Explain, making a connection between structure and function of biomolecules.

Answer 1

1) the cellulose and starch are made up of glucose monomers,which are none other than carbohydrate monomers, the arrangement of starch is a continuous long chain of glucose monoemers which are bind up with 1-4 linkage of alpha glucose, while the cellulose, it is the ploymer of glucose molecule bind up with 1-4linkage of beta glucose.

2) the difference between starch and glucose is the type of bond, in starch it is 1-4 alpha linkage while in cellulose it is 1-4 beta linkage, as we humans, does have the enzyme to break down the alpha bond of starch but we dont have the enzyme to break down the beta bond of cellulose.therefore, we as humans can not digest cellulose.

the structure of both the molecules are similar and made up of same monomer, the only difference is the presence of difference in the linkage bond as mentioned earlier.