Question

The chemical nature of chitin is ___?

Answer 1

• Chitin is a carbohydrate. It is a long-chain polymer of an N-acetylglucosamine, a derivative of glucose, and is found in many places throughout the natural world.
• Chitin is an amino-polysaccharide polymer. It is a homopolysaccharide (made up of a single monomer unit).
• The chitin is a building block of exoskeletons of insects and the cell wall of fungi.
• The monomer unit of chitin is N-acetyl glucosamine. N-acetyl glucosamine and another monomer unit N-acetyl muramic acid are monomer units of bacterial cell walls.
• N-acetyl glucosamine is an amide derivative of glucose.
• It is the second most abundant polysaccharide after Cellulose.
• Chitin synthases is a widely conserved enzyme that catalyzed the synthesis of Chitin.