Chitin crustacean waste and mushrooms for possible development of products in tissue engineering, medicine, and industry. Chitin Chitin (CHON) ( ), a long-chain polymer of "N"-acetylglucosamine, is a derivative of glucose. It is a primary component of cell walls in fungi, the exoskeletons of arthropods, such as crustaceans (e.g., crabs, lobsters and shrimps) and insects, the radulae of molluscs, cephalopod beaks, and the scales of fish and lissamphibians. The structure of chitin is comparable to another polysaccharide - cellulose, forming crystalline nanofibrils or whiskers. In terms of function, it may be compared to the protein keratin. Chitin has proved useful for
Glucose that its hydroxy groups (with the exception of the hydroxy group on the anomeric carbon of -glucose) are in the equatorial position. Presumably, glucose is the most abundant natural monosaccharide because it is less glycated with proteins than other monosaccharides. Another hypothesis is that glucose, being the only D-aldohexose that has all five hydroxy substituents in the equatorial position in the form of β-D-glucose, is more readily accessible to chemical reactions, for example, for esterification or acetal formation. For this reason, D-glucose is also a highly preferred building block in natural polysaccharides (glycans). Polysaccharides that are composed solely of Glucose