Monday, November 13, 2006

Name This Molecule #1

 
The mystery molecule is an aldohexose. There are 16 different aldohexoses. The structures and names of 8 of them are show below in order to help you out.

This is a tough one. You have to know several carbohydrate naming conventions and you have to understand Fischer projections. Good luck.

16 comments:

  1. L-Mannose.
    Interestingly, you, my professor, have not flogged your blog in BCH242. Is it a symptom of its nascent vulnerability, or did you just want students to wander onto it by accident?

    Anyway, back to my essay.

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  2. dunbar said, "Interestingly, you, my professor, have not flogged your blog in BCH242. Is it a symptom of its nascent vulnerability, or did you just want students to wander onto it by accident?"
    Are those the only two choices? :-)

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  3. dunbar said...
    L-Mannose.

    It appears to be L-gulose. I would be happy to be corrected though.

    Anyway, back to my exam study ;-).

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  4. Dear Professor Moran,

    I encourage you to use facebook. It is a very cool way in which students and staff at the university can be connected.

    The link is www.facebook.com

    -A BCH242 student.

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  5. Well, the RS configurations of C2, C3, C4, and C5 are S, S, R, and S respectively. Since C5 is S, it implies it is a L-aldohexose. Then, C2, C3 and C4 define the bit after the L. Clearly, you can narrow it down to either mannose or gulose, but the C2 is S, so it's mannose.

    Holding out for bonus marks!

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  6. I agree with you dunbar that the (R,S) configuration of C2-C5 is S,S,R,S and that the 5S indicates an L-aldohexose. However, I thought that as the L sugars are mirror images the name that is assigned is the D-aldohexose with all the chiral centres reversed. Hence, L-gulose as the (R,S) config of D-gulose is 2R,3R,4S,5R.

    Cheers.

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  7. I'm not revealing the answer but I'll make a note of those students who get it right! Assuming, of course, that someone does get the correct answer. :-)

    Why would I need facebook when we have BIOME?

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  8. L-Gulose is the answer, its L-Gulose I bet my life on it...well take that back not my life but the student's beside me ..umm on the right side...

    Mashriq Alganabi
    (aka Mashriq Alganabi)

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  9. Prof. Moran is this the only link to your blog or do u have more floating around, id be interested in seeing ur view on the creationist vs evolutionist theories. Oh and btw what up with calling those that don't believe in evolution "bigots". Having a belief and denying a theory doesn't make you a bigot but does make u very critical of scientific evidence.

    Mashriq Alganabi

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  10. lordblack said:
    "Prof. Moran is this the only link to your blog or do u have more floating around, id be interested in seeing ur view on the creationist vs evolutionist theories. Oh and btw what up with calling those that don't believe in evolution "bigots". Having a belief and denying a theory doesn't make you a bigot but does make u very critical of scientific evidence.

    I believe Prof. Moran posts regularly on www.talkorigins.org (which is incidentally a substantial resource about creationism and evolution). But there are a ton of good resources on the Internet, so reading them might give a good perspective as to the criticisms I have about your statement:
    1) Somewhat of a non sequitur, I do not believe Prof. Moran applied the label 'bigot' to deniers of evolution. I believe he called them IDiots (which I personally think isn't constructive-- sorry!)
    2)Your statement suggests that creationism is a theory. From a scientific perspective, creationism is not a theory, it is a story. One cannot substantiate creationism with science. A good reason as to why is because creationism establishes, without any doubt, the result and then goes to find evidence. Science is about looking at observations and coming to a result.
    3) I would agree it is good to keep a healthy skepticism; that said, denying evolution out right by ignoring evidence and asserting the contrary in the face of said evidence is, at best, foolish. I would venture that Prof. Moran would say that choosing a belief over evidence that you can assess with your own eyes is irrational.

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  11. Eh, I Just finished CHM138 and I could do this...just give me a model kit and 5 minutes, too lazy now though, must go back to studying.

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