Biology Forum › Molecular Biology › How does a Sugar’s Structure Affect Rate of Fermentation?
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February 8, 2006 at 9:19 am #3541
Coraleen212ParticipantHey everyone, I’m a little confused over this issue. I recently conducted an experiment as part of my A2 coursework investigating the rates of fermentation produced by various sugars (glucose, fructose, galactose, maltose and lactose). I got the results and they fitted the pattern I expected ie. glucose giving the highest rate, then fructose etc. However, I need to use the structure of the sugar molecules to explain this difference in rate and this is where I’m stuck, as the structures of them seem to be fairly similiar (apart from the fact that some are monosaccharides and some are disaccharides). Can anyone help please? Much appreciated 😀
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February 8, 2006 at 6:53 pm #40199MrMisteryParticipant
Well, the disaccharides would have the slowest rate since they need to be turned into monosacharides first by hidrolysis.
Then i suppose your monosacharides had to be turned into glucose first, since glycolysis starts with glucose, not fructose, not galactose… -
February 9, 2006 at 2:39 pm #40306Coraleen212Participant
Ahh, this was something I was confused about – fermentation can only occur with glucose? So all the other sugars would have to be converted to glucose before fermentation can take place, and other sugars cannot ‘take glucose’s place’ in the reaction… is this correct?
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February 13, 2006 at 5:23 pm #40764Coraleen212Participant
Anyone? Am I right on this or have I got the wrong end of the proverbial stick? XD
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May 21, 2010 at 4:59 pm #99838koleanParticipant
My first thought would be on the enzymes that are doing the fermentation, and what is their starting substrate (maybe it can be fructose and not glucose). Yeast (is this your fermentator?) can be complex in their substrates, depending on the species of yeast.
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May 22, 2010 at 8:07 am #99849JackBeanParticipantquote MrMistery:Well, the disaccharides would have the slowest rate since they need to be turned into monosacharides first by hidrolysis.
Then i suppose your monosacharides had to be turned into glucose first, since glycolysis starts with glucose, not fructose, not galactose…Not really, they are first phosphorylated by hexokinase, Fru can be then of course immediatelly used and other sugars are interconverted by cost of two ATPs
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February 9, 2011 at 9:22 am #103466sagaarParticipant
Well, I too was wondering how the rate of fermentation could be influenced by the type or structure of the sugar. Since there are many types of sugar such as monosaccharaides and disaccharides, there could be definitely some kind of change in the rate of fermentation. I am so glad to see a rational explanation regarding this matter. I guess disaccharides seem to be slowest in this regard of rate of fermentation and glucose to be fastest since it is the first to go through glycolysis!
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July 12, 2011 at 9:24 am #105557bellyjellyParticipant
sugar is food for yeast. And it encourages them to produce carbon dioxide.
So sugar would encourage the yeast ferment faster, thus producing more carbon dioxide.
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August 1, 2011 at 7:45 am #105746kyra13Participant
Speeds it up. Sugar is what powers the fermentation process
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