Question

What is the major difference among the common polysaccharides glycogen, starch and cellulose?

Answer 1

Hint: Polysaccharides are the polymeric carbohydrate structure which is formed of repeating units of monosaccharides or disaccharides joined together by glycosidic bonds.

Complete Answer:
- Polysaccharides contain slight modifications of the repeating unit and are heterogeneous. Polysaccharides contain various degrees of branches. The most abundant carbohydrate found in food is polysaccharides.
- Polysaccharides are polymers of D-glucose.
Some of the important polysaccharides are
- Starch- amylose, and amylopectin
- Glycogen
- Cellulose
- Chitin

Sl.No	Starch	Cellulose	Glycogen
1.	It is the main storage carbohydrate source in plants.	It is the main component of the cell wall of plants.	It is the main storage carbohydrate source of fungi and animals.
2.	Monomer unit is alpha glucose.	Monomer is beta glucose.	Monomer is alpha glucose.
3.	1,4 glycosidic bonds in amylose and 1,6 glycosidic bonds in amylopectin occur.	1,4 glycosidic bonds occur between monomers.	1,4 and 1,6 glycosidic bonds occur between the monomers.
4.	Amylose is a coiled chain whereas amylopectin is a long branched chain.	Straight, long, unbranched chain, which forms H-bonds with adjacent chains.	A short, many branched chains of which some chains are coiled.

Note: Plants form starch, animals form glycogen. Plants also form the cellulose to build cell walls. The breakage of cellulose is difficult while starch is easy. Cellulose is the most abundant polysaccharide on earth. Starch acts as short term energy stores in plants and glycogen in animals.