Carbohydrate Chemistry...

[ak21]

Hey everyone,

I am using the BR book for organic chemistry and they go absolutely crazy with carbohydrate chemistry. For those of you who have taken the MCAT recently is it worth going over all this? Do I really need to memorize structures of monosaccharides and all those reactions? I don't remember learning any of that in my O-chem class...

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[plzNOCarribbean]

Hey everyone,

I am using the BR book for organic chemistry and they go absolutely crazy with carbohydrate chemistry. For those of you who have taken the MCAT recently is it worth going over all this? Do I really need to memorize structures of monosaccharides and all those reactions? I don't remember learning any of that in my O-chem class...

No, absolutely not. I would just be familiar with the glucose Fischer projection, and how the C5- hydroxyl group attacks the C1 Aldehyde to form an hemiacetal. This is how anomerization occurs. The glucose molecule in its linear form is converted to the cyclic form due to this attack, and depending on whether nucleophilic attack occurs above or below the C1 Sp2 carbon dictates whether we have the alpha or beta glucose isomer.

A good way to remember the B isomer is the mnemonic "better to B UP", which shows that the OH group on the C1 carbon is UP in the Beta Isomer.

http://www.chem.ucalgary.ca/courses/351/Carey5th/Ch25/b-d-glucose06.gif

 

[csx]

bump. i have the same question as OP.