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My teacher told me that Chitin is a heteropolysaccharide but my book regards it as a homopolysaccharide.I am so confused

Mohammad Abid
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1 Answers1

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Even teachers are sometimes wrong. ;)

Chitin is a homopolysaccharide. This just means that it is made up of repeating units of the same monosaccharide - in this case that monosaccharide is N-acetylglucosamine. Other examples of homopolysaccharides are glycogen and cellulose.

The basic structure of chitin is shown below as a polymer of two N-acetylglucosamine units: enter image description here

Homopolysaccharides can be linear chains or branched, as long as they are made up of just one type of sugar unit. A heteropolysaccharide is made up of multiple different monosaccharide units. Glycosaminoglycans would be an example of a heterpolysaccharide as they contain two different sugar units.

Harry Vervet
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