-Deoxyribose is an
organic compound
In chemistry, organic compounds are generally any chemical compounds that contain carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Due to carbon's ability to catenate (form chains with other carbon atoms), millions of organic compounds are known. The ...
with formula C
5H
10O
4. It is a synthetic
monosaccharide
Monosaccharides (from Greek ''monos'': single, '' sacchar'': sugar), also called simple sugars, are the simplest forms of sugar and the most basic units (monomers) from which all carbohydrates are built.
They are usually colorless, water-solub ...
, a
stereoisomer
In stereochemistry, stereoisomerism, or spatial isomerism, is a form of isomerism in which molecules have the same molecular formula and sequence of bonded atoms (constitution), but differ in the three-dimensional orientations of their atoms in ...
(mirror image) of the natural compound
-deoxyribose.
-Deoxyribose can be synthesized from
-galactose .
[,
SHI Zhen-Dan, YANG Bing-Hui, and WU Yu-Lin (2002), ''A stereospecific synthesis of L-deoxyribose, L-ribose and L-ribosides''. Tetrahedron, volume 58, issue 16, pp. 3287–3296
] It has been used in chemical research, e.g. in the synthesis of mirror-image
DNA.
[
Hidehito Urata, Emiko Ogura, Keiko Shinohara, Yoshiaki Ueda and Masao Akagi (1992), ''Synthesis and properties of mirror-image DNA''. Nucleic Acids Research, volume 20 issue 13, pp. 3325-3332
]
References
{{organic-compound-stub
Deoxy sugars
Aldopentoses