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 The free energy of formation of α-D-glucose is 917.2 kilojoules per mole. In humans, gluconeogenesis occurs in the liver and kidney, but also in other cell types. In the liver about 150 g of glycogen are stored, in skeletal muscle about 250 g.<ref name="Löffler/Petrides 389">Peter C. Heinrich: "Löffler/Petrides Biochemie und Pathobiochemie." Springer-Verlag, 2014, , p. 389. (german)</ref> However, the glucose released in muscle cells upon cleavage of the glycogen can not be delivered to the circulation because glucose is phosphorylated by the hexokinae, and a glucose-6-phosphatase is not expressed to remove the phosphate group. Unlike for glucose, there is no