Sugars and Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are important biological macromolecules that consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in a 1:2:1 ratio. Carbohydrates are organic compounds organized in the form of aldehydes or ketones with multiple hydroxyl groups coming off the carbon chain. Monosaccharides, the simplest carbohydrate units, are commonly known as simple sugars. Carbohydrates containing two sugar molecules are called disaccharides, e.g., table sugar, chemically known as sucrose. Chains of more than two sugars are called oligosaccharides.

Carbohydrate derivatives are sugar molecules containing substituents other than hydroxyl groups. Examples include glycosylamines, sugar phosphates, and sugar acetates. Most sugar derivatives occur naturally and have important biological functions. For instance, chondroitin sulfate is an important structural component of cartilage and provides much of its resistance to compression.

Carbohydrates are key compounds in the study of metabolism. They are also increasingly used for many biochemical purification techniques, including chromatography and electrophoresis. Many of these techniques depend on derivatives of cellulose, dextran, and agarose. Functionalized carbohydrates, such as azido-modified sugars, are increasingly being used for different types of proteomics research. Thermo Fisher Scientific carries a large range of carbohydrate building blocks. We offer a selection of mono- and polysaccharides as well as modified sugar derivatives.