Any or a monomer can be defined to be a molecule which is responsible to form the basic unit of the polymer where Polymer can be known to be the blocks for protein building.
The function monomers examples are ethylene, glucose, amino acids and vinyl chloride. Functional Monomers are held responsible to get themselves attached with the rest monomers forming a repeating chain of molecules via a known process called polymerization.
Few Functional monomer examples are –
Simple Sugar
The simple sugars are also monomers that are referred to as monosaccharaides. The monosaccharaides have carbon, oxygen and molecules of hydrogen.
Glucose in plants is produced during photosynthesis and is the ultimate fuel for the animals. These also have the capacity to form ling chains which make up the polymers called as carbohydrate that stores energy. Glucose is monomers having six carbons, twelve hydrogen and six oxygen.
The cells also use up glucose for cellular respiration. The rest form of simple sugars includes fructose and galactose. The pentose are also simple sugar like xylose, ribose. On attaching the monomers of sugars produces disaccharides or bigger polymers called polysaccharides.
Made from any monomer, in plants, starch serve as the source of main energy which is insoluble in water. With base being monomers and large number of glucose, this is the process of starch being formed. Animals consumes, grains and many food made have starch in them.
A polysaccharide called glycogen is used for storing energy in animals; the base monomer for it is glucose. The difference between starch and glycogen is that glycogen has more number of branches than starch. If there is any need of extra energy for cells to function, glycogen can be broken down to glucose via hydrolysis.
Cellulose is also an example of it which is found commonly around the globe in plants. Cellulose are the house of a minimum of half of the carbon on earth. On the counts of most animals, they are ineffective in digesting cellulose. It can be only digested by termites and ruminants. Chitin is also an example of polysaccharide which forges the animal shell like crustaceans and insects. The simple monomers of sugar like glucose is thus the basis of any living being and also releases energy for the survival of itself.
Amino Acids
Any subunit of protein is an amino acid. It is the most common polymer which is found in the whole nature. It is thus also a monomer of protein.
Any basic amino acid is made up of an amine group, an R-group, a carboxyl group and a molecule of glucose. There are a total of 20 amino acids present are all of them are used in combinations to make different proteins.
Numerous amino acid join through peptide bonds to create a protein. Two bonded make up dipeptide, three of them combine to form tripeptide and four combine to form tetrapeptide. Following this pattern the protein having more than four amino acids are called polypeptides. Within the 20 amino present. Glucose with amino and carboxyl form the base monomers.
Additional folding of amino acids leads to formation of many complex strictures that are quaternary called collagen. The collagens provide animals with their structure formation. A protein called keratin gives animals’ hair, skin and the features. The proteins also shall be acting as catalysts for several types of reaction in the living body.
These are serving as materials for communication in between the cells. For an instance, a protein called actin plays its role in acting as a transporter for many organisms. The functions of proteins is defined by the three dimensional structure of them.
Nucleotides
For the purpose of amino acid construction, Nucleotides acts as a blueprint which also contains proteins. It is rolled to store data and have energy transfer for the organism.
They are monomers of type linear, natural, nucleic acids like ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The genetic code of conduct in any organism is carried by DNA and RNA. The monomers of it are made of five carbon sugar, a nitrogenous base and a phosphate.
The bases of the structure include guanine and adenine which are purely derived from purine and then thymine and cytosine or uracil which are from the pyrimidine.
The sugar combined and the nitrogenous bases are held responsible for several functions. One of the common examples is adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is the main system for energy delivery in organism. ATP molecules are made of ribose, adenine and three groups of phosphate.
The sugar if the nucleic acids are connected together via the phosphodiester linkages. These links carry negative charge which raises a stable macromolecule for the purpose of storing genetic data. The life on Earth has to owe its continuation to the nucleotide monomers which forms the backbone for RNA and DNA and also for ATP.
RNA has ribose, adenine, cytosine and uracil working in several methods inside the cell. RNA is a single helix stricture and also works as an enzyme during DNA replication for making up proteins. On the other hand DNA is more stable with a double helix figure and is the prevalent cell polynucleotide.
Fatty Acids
A lips which is a polymer also being hydrophobic (repellent to water) is fats. Every monomer has its base and so does fat.
The bases for fats are the alcohol glycerol that has hydroxyl groups with three carbons along with fatty acids. Glucose being a simple sugar yields less energy than fats. Fats release double the energy of glucose. All for these reasons fats serve for energy storage in animals.
Fatty acids that are present in fats as two in number along with one glycerol are known as diacylglycerols or also phsopholipids. The lipids that have three tails of fatty acids and only one glycerol are referred as triacylglycerols. Triacylgylcerols are also popular by fats and oils. A fat are needed by the body to give insulation and also provides nerves its safety inside the body and also the plasma membrane of the cell.
What is the Importance of Monomer?
Monomers are surely the essential for being the locks that shall be responsible to build the molecules which make up almost all living and the non-living, all the natural and the man made.
The very most common and vital use of it is its feature of polyfunctionality which is regarded as its capability of forming any chemical bond with two or more rest present molecules of monomers. The term of Monomer while divided into two parts.
The first part being mono means one and the suffix which is mer means part. Monomers are used to categories molecules of various large class which can be very commonly defined into several sub divisions or groups like alcohols, the acrylics, sugars, amines and the epoxides.
How are Monomers named?
The point when there is a combination of few monomers with the polymer, the compounds are given their names.
- Dimer- Have two monomers
- Trimer- have three units of monomer
- Tetramer- Four monomer unit
- Pentamer- Five units of monomer
- Hexamer- Having six units
- Heptamer- Seven units monomer
- Octamer- Eights units monomer
- Nonamer- Nine monomer units
- Decamer- Ten monomers
- Dodecamer- 12 units of monomer.
- Eicosamer- 20 units of monomer
What are Functional Monomers?
The one that show any specific groups for side chain to get itself reacted and get itself used up for synthesizing more complex compounds for vinyl like macro monomers.
It can also be used to get the functioning of the polymers improved. On the most vital part, these can be used up to trim few features of polymerization and the final residues which takes in to consideration the pros offered by the solvent which interacts with the functional groups.
What are the nature of monomers?
Featuring carbon, polymers which are found sin nature are made of monomers.
The method that is used up includes hydrolysis and dehydration synthesis. The enzymes are large molecules itself which period their normal phases of speeding up the process.
An instance of an enzyme that breaks polymer is amylase which also convers starch to sugar. This procedure is also used in digestion. The natural polymers can also be used for thickening, food stabilizing, and emulsification and for medicine. Some examples can be rubber, DNA, keratin, wool and more.
“Keratin – Pilomatricoma” by Y. Rosen, MD is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
FAQs-
IS Glucose a Monomer Of Protein?
Glucose forms the base monomer along with amine and carboxyl for all the amino acids present and thus is called monomer of protein.
IS Uracil and Thymine same?
The bases for nucleotides include Uracil or Thymine both derived from pyrimidine, where uracil is found in RNA and thymine in DNA.
Why are the Fatty Acids not Polymer?
Fatty acids are not considered to be so for there are very few set of chains in lengths that are found in nature and thus for this reason the chains that are numbered in even are more in common that the uneven ones.
Also Read:
- Hydrogen bond examples
- Heterotrophic bacteria examples
- Irreversible chemical change examples
- Photoautotrophic bacteria examples
- Osmosis examples
- Muscular force examples
- Electric force examples
- Coordinate covalent bond examples
- Centripetal force examples definition faq
- Isolated system examples
I am Ankita Chattopadhyay from Kharagpur. I have completed my B. Tech in Biotechnology from Amity University Kolkata. I am a Subject Matter Expert in Biotechnology. I have been keen in writing articles and also interested in Literature with having my writing published in a Biotech website and a book respectively. Along with these, I am also a Hodophile, a Cinephile and a foodie.
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