Explain how the catabolism of fructose differs from that of glucose.

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All right. Hello everyone. So this question is asking us which of the following statements correctly describes how the catabolism of dihydroxy acetone differs from that of glucose and select all that apply. So here we have four different statements as well as four different answer choices labeled A through D proposing which of the four statements are correct. So before we go ahead and talk about each of the individual statements, recall, the glycolysis is the pathway describing the catabolism of glucose. It's the breakdown of glucose. So the starting material is glucose and ultimately, it's going to undergo a series of metabolic reactions to produce pyruvate. And then from there, pyruvate can undergo many different chemical reactions. But glycolysis as a pathway stops after pyruvate has been formed. So moving on now to step one or sorry statement one, it says that dihydroxy acetone or DH A P is an intermediate in glycolysis. While glucose is the starting material for glycolysis. This is true, right? Once a glycolysis is broken down, one of the intermediates is dihydroxy acetone phosphate or DH A P. So statement number one is true because glucose is the starting material and dihydroxy acetone is an intermediate moving on now to statement too, it says that dihydroxy acetone is directly phosphor related to form glyceraldehyde three phosphate. While glucose undergoes a series of enzymatic reactions to be converted into glycolytic intermediates. So for the second statement, it's worth recalling one specific step during the glycolysis pathway. So at some point, glucose, if you recall is a six carbon sugar. And so at some point, it's going to be broken down into 23 product intermediates. One of them is dihydroxy acetone phosphate or DH A P. And the other one is glyceraldehyde three phosphate. So at some point, we're going to produce these 23 carbon intermediates. However, before the pathway can proceed further or before it does proceed further. Dihydroxyacetone phosphate is converted into another equivalent of glyceraldehyde three phosphate. And this has done so be because of an enzyme known as trios phosphate isomerase. And so that last bit is very important, right. Dihydroxy acetone phosphate is never directly phosphorated. Instead, it's an isomerization reaction that produces glyceraldehyde three phosphate from DH A P. So statement two is not correct for that reason. Moving on now to statement three, it says that glucose enters glycolysis as glucose six phosphate and dihydroxyacetone is converted to glyceraldehyde three phosphate. Now, this statement is correct, right, because when talking about statement two, we've confirmed that dihydroxy acetone is converted into glyceraldehyde three phosphate. And furthermore recall that in the first step of the glycolysis pathway glucose is first phosphor related to produce glucose six phosphate. So both statements here are true. This leads us now to statement number four, which says that dihydroxy acetone can be converted into glyceraldehyde three phosphate. While glucose requires conversion into fructose 16 bisphosphate before this conversion. And this is also true, right? Because glucose is not directly broken down into dihydroxy acetone phosphate and glyceraldehyde three phosphate rather, it's going to undergo a series of steps to produce fructose 16 P phosphate. Before fructose, 16 P phosphate is then broken down into our two carbon, excuse me, 23 carbon intermediates. So statement four is true. So this means that statements 13 and four are accurate, which means that option c is our correct answer and there you have it. So with that being said, thank you so very much for watching and I hope we found this helpful.

Explain how the catabolism of fructose differs from that of glucose.

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Key Concepts

Catabolism

Fructose Metabolism

Glucose Metabolism